The XCaptors
by dreamschemer
Summary: Magic and Mutants are intertwined as a new threat arises. Li and Sakura, who haven't seen each other for seven years, team up with the x-men to try to defeat this new, stange evil. SS ET ROMY maybe Kiotr. Disclaimer: I don't own x-men or cardcaptors
1. The beginning

The X-Captor  
  
I'd like to begin this fanfic quick, so I'll make this explanation short and sweet. This story takes place 6-7 years after Syaoran went back to China, and their confessions that they loved each other. His betrothal to Mei Ling was broken long ago. Syaoran is now the Li Clan's leader.  
  
Now without further ado, here is the story  
  
---Sakura---  
  
Sakura was in a forest, running as fast as she could, for what reason, she could  
  
not remember, but she knew it was important. The sky was changing colors rapidly-  
  
becoming black and purple and grey before reverting to it's normal blue- only to change  
  
colors yet again. Yet she knew that where she was going, what she had to do, was more  
  
important that understanding what was happening to the sky. She ran harder.  
  
Soon, an elegant building came in view at the top of a cliff; It's refined gates  
  
open, wrecked and barely hanging on their hinges. She slowed down to a walk upon  
  
entering them, the feeling of imminent danger slowly creeping away. She walked towards  
  
the building.  
  
With a crash, the doors burst open. Sakura immediately ducked, while putting one  
  
arm up to shield her eyes, the other to reach for her staff, still in key form. She looked up,  
  
and felt her mouth open in shock and fear, before she screamed...  
  
"AAAAAHHHHHH!" Sakura yelled, immediately waking up from her dream.  
  
Her shout was accompanied with someone else's shout, a yellow furred, white winged  
  
someone.  
  
"AAAAHHHH" Keroberos shouted along with her, taking into startled flight  
  
before looking at Sakura, who was still shivering despite the warm summer air from her  
  
dream. "What was that for, Sakura? You scared me half to death, screaming like that you  
  
know," the teddy bear-sized guardian said irately, looking, in Tomoyo's words, even  
  
more "kawaii" than usual. He got even angrier at seeing Sakura stifle a shaky giggle  
  
despite her recent fear- Kero just looked so cute when he was angry.  
  
"I'm sorry, Kero, I just had a nightmare again" she answered the guardian, fondly  
  
watching the winged guardian before sitting up on her bed.  
  
"Another nightmare?" Kero asked, concernedly, worry written in his eyes.  
  
"Sakura, these nightmares are happening too often," he stated, before adding, "And I'm  
  
beginning to think that they may be prophetic." He looked at her seriously, knowing that  
  
Sakura's prophetic dreams always warned of great danger in the future- the more often  
  
she had them, the more serious the matter. 'And from the number of dreams she's had so  
  
far, I'd say this new danger will probably be one of her worst trials, even more trying  
  
than battling the reincarnation of Clow Reed.'  
  
He snapped out of his reverie as Sakura finished changing, deciding on wearing a  
  
cute little jean skirt and an pretty pink spaghetti strap shirt, with matching hair clips and  
  
flip flops, stunning as usual.  
  
"Kero, I think you're right about my dreams," she said sincerely, brushing her  
  
hair back from her face as she went to make her bed. "I have the same nightmare every  
  
time, you know, the one where I'm in the forest and find that mansion..." It was Sakura'a  
  
turn to drift off in her thoughts, as she remembered the dream. What came out of the  
  
doors of that place that could scare her so badly? For some reason, she could not  
  
remember. Kero just grumbled about being hungry as she sat down on her newly made  
  
bed, puzzling over it.  
  
"Well, we'll have to discuss this later if you want to make it to your summer job  
  
in time AND, most importantly, feed me" Kero said gleefully. "Today, could you get me  
  
lucky charms for breakfast?"  
  
He looked up at her happily, his eyes round, but Sakura barely paid attention to  
  
his second comment. "HOE!" She said, looking at the alarm clock on her bedside table,  
  
"IT'S EIGHT TWENTY! (Her work starts at 8:30) I GOTTA GET TO WORK!!!" And  
  
with that, Sakura ran out of her room at top speed, officially starting her day.  
  
---Syaoran---  
  
Meanwhile at the same time in China at the Li residence...  
  
Li stood in front of a group of eight year olds, each one holding a wooden practice  
  
sword. He himself had a practice sword, his magic wielding sword hanging about his  
  
neck in pendant form. He balanced the wooden sword up with one finger, its flat side  
  
resting on his flesh.  
  
"When you sword fight, the first and foremost thing you need is a good blade,"  
  
Syaoran said to the gaggle of students, children of the Li clan, his clan. He continued  
  
speaking to the class.  
  
"Most people think that the most important thing about a sword is it's sharpness,  
  
However, you can change the sharpness of a blade easily. What you cannot change is a  
  
sword's balance." He then lightly threw the wooden sword he was balancing in the air  
  
and deftly caught it, getting awed looks from his little students.  
  
"The balance of a sword greatly affects it's effectiveness in a fight. With a better  
  
balanced blade, you will be able to parry with greater ease, execute harder moves with  
  
less error, and strike with more accuracy." He did one of each said move, again amazing  
  
the children.  
  
"So today, I'd like you to learn how to tell a good sword from a bad one." He  
  
pointed to a wall of swords marked with numbers, all dull lest the children hurt  
  
themselves. "What you will do is use the technique I taught you to balance each sword,  
  
and put them in order, from worst to best, on how balanced each sword is. Everyone  
  
works alone. Write down your findings on this paper," he said, handing out a sheet. He  
  
gave the class a small smile before saying, "Now get to work."  
  
Syaoran watched with amusement the children picked up a sword and tried to find  
  
their balances, some of them, dropping their swords from inexperience, others giving  
  
looks of concentration as they tried to figure out exactly what master Li, the leader of  
  
their clan, was trying to teach them. 'Was I ever this bad with a sword?' he wondered  
  
mentally, trying to picture himself as one of those little kids struggling to unsheathe a  
  
sword, and failed. He knew he had not started out as a good swordsman, but he had been  
  
unnervingly good for a beginner, remembering the stunned looks on his peers faces as  
  
he'd master a tricky move in a few weeks while it took them months. Sword fighting  
  
came naturally to him; the magical Li Clan sword was like a part of his body.  
  
His thoughts ended as Mei Ling, Syaoran's cousin came into the room with a  
  
troubled expression on her face. She walked up to him through the group of sword-  
  
fumbling students, gave a quick bow in respect to the young leader, and talked to him.  
  
"Master Li, the Elders request your presence immediately," she said nervously,  
  
wringing one of her long black pigtails.  
  
Syaoran, forgetting all formalities, asked her concernedly, "Mei Ling, what's  
  
happening? You look really worried."  
  
Mei Ling looked around the room to see if there were any adults watching, before  
  
dropping her formal attitude and began speaking to him as a friend. "Li, something big is  
  
going on in America," she said hastily. "I don't know too much about it, but five men in  
  
our clan were found dead there." Syaoran looked grave.  
  
"Is that all you know, 'Ling?" he asked her, eying her still agitated state.  
  
"There was something unusual about how they died, I know that much..." she  
  
said, looking down. "And I know they are going to send you there to investigate it." She  
  
looked up at him again, worry written all over her face. "Syaoran, I know I don't have  
  
any magical abilities, but I have a bad feeling about this."  
  
"Me too, me too..."  
  
"J-just be careful." She still cared deeply for him as he loved her, though now  
  
they came to mutual terms that they liked each other only as friends. He thought that Mei  
  
Ling would take it badly, but it did quite the opposite: they became even closer. To  
  
Syaoran, their friendship was invaluable.  
  
"I will," he said kindly. "Thanks for telling me Mei Ling. Oh, and, could you take  
  
over the class for me?" She smiled and nodded as he again gave his thanks before the  
  
young leader left to find the Elders. He distractedly left the room.  
  
"Good luck," she whispered, "You need it." 


	2. Lazy days and looming dangers

--- Sakura ---  
  
"Hoooeee!" Sakura cried, running in just in time into the restaurant where she worked as  
  
a waitress, the 'Saki Steakhouse'. It was a little restaurant with a nice, warm family  
  
oriented atmosphere, mostly because Tomoeda residents went to it for special occasions,  
  
like birthdays.  
  
"I'm here Mr. Mitchertu, right on time, no reason to dock my wages!" she cried to  
  
her boss as he looked up at her shaking his head, chuckling. Takai Mitchetu, the owner of  
  
the steakhouse, was a man in his mid-forties with black hair and fiery orange eyes. He  
  
was a very tall man who even beat Touya in height- and usually wore a mild, intelligent  
  
expression on his bespectacled face, thought right now he looked just about ready to  
  
laugh.  
  
Sakura had been constantly coming in late for most of the month, even if it was  
  
only a minute or two. Yesterday, when she yet again came late, he jokingly said if she  
  
kept on coming late then he might dock her wages dollar a minute. She had of course  
  
taken it seriously.  
  
"Sakura," Mr. Michertu said, laughing, "You know I was just joking yesterday  
  
about the wages." He smiled at her, as she sweat dropped, mumbling something hat  
  
souned like "of course".  
  
"I'm not that mean of a boss that I would do that to you Sakura, you know that,"  
  
Mr. Michertu said as Tomoyo, who worked as a cook, popped out of the kitchen and  
  
answered, "definitely not!"  
  
The owner favored Tomoyo with a smile before she got back to work, before he  
  
said to Sakura, "Don't worry, it doesn't matter. Though, now that I know that what I said  
  
did get you to work on time..."  
  
He looked at her mischievously, only to see she was no longer there, but furiously  
  
cleaning the tables and saying, "Just forget about it!" nervously. He chuckled and got  
  
back to his work.  
  
Soon enough, the restaurant was open, though they got only a few customers in  
  
the morning. By lunchtime, the place was buzzing and more help arrived as usual- Mr.  
  
Michertu knew the most of his customers came in past twelve in the afternoon.  
  
Tomoyo and Sakura had lunch around two, when most of the customers had left,  
  
eating chicken sandwiches Tomoyo prepared for themselves- one of their benefits  
  
working there was they could eat whatever they wanted from the restaurant- free.  
  
The rest of the day went on as usual, with four people celebrating birthdays, and  
  
one gigantic family reunion. When they got off at five, they were, as usual picked up by  
  
Tomoyo's steady boyfriend, Eriol. Eriol and Tomoyo had bee dating for five years now;  
  
their relationship was really steady. Sakura thought they were really sweet together-  
  
Tomoyo was always planning surprises for the reincarnation with moonlit dinners and  
  
love notes, while Eriol would patiently go through anything she asked of him, whether it  
  
was sewing a costume and trying it on, to shopping for camcorders, and he was always  
  
interested. They were perfect.  
  
Sakura sighed as she watched them chat on the ride home, not helping but finding  
  
herself a little jealous of the amethyst-eyed girl. She herself had no luck with love. Her  
  
childhood love, Syaoran, had left her, and had never come back.  
  
Throughout the years, she had of course dated others, but none of them, in her  
  
mind, compared to the brown-eyed sorcerer. The longest time she had ever gone out with  
  
anyone was a month. All her relationship ended quickly, topping her ill fortune in the  
  
department of love.  
  
Sakura snapped back into reality when roil rolled to a stop in front of Tomoyo's  
  
house. "Thank you Eriol," she said sweetly, giving him a light kiss. "I'll see you later  
  
tonight!" she said with a stunning smile, making the ever composed Eriol lose his  
  
composure and brought a dreamy look to his face.  
  
"Yes, I'll see you tonight." He lightly kissed her hand, making her giggle, before  
  
she got out of the car and went to her house. He waited until Tomoyo was safely inside  
  
before driving Sakura to her house.  
  
"Sakura, I've been meaning to talk to you," Eriol said as he drove the car.  
  
"Oh? About what? The English assignment? Your right, we should start working  
  
on it-" Eriol cut her off, surprising Sakura a little.  
  
"No Sakura, you know what I have to talk about," he said smoothly, looking at  
  
her through his rear view mirror.  
  
"Yes... The magic. Our Magic...It feels different...dirtier" She looked at Eriol.  
  
"What's going on?" Eriol looked at her seriously, before responding, "I'm not sure  
  
exactly. But I know that whatever is happening, it is somehow related to five sorcerer's  
  
death's in America by unknown persons." Sakura looked up, stunned.  
  
"Sorcerers were murdered?" she whispered, wondering what was going on. It was  
  
not unusual for sorcerers to die; with all the feuds between the warring clans and houses,  
  
many of them never got to see their thirtieth birthdays. What was strange about it was the  
  
number killed: because of the dwindling numbers of sorcerers all over the world, all the  
  
clans had come up with an unspoken rule for all battles to be one-on-one duels. At least  
  
six men in a battle was unheard of.  
  
"Yes, and not ones with little power, either. They were taken out together,  
  
according to the autopsy reports." Sakura was thoroughly shaken. "The strangest part  
  
about their deaths was that the traces of magic left on their bodies was...not normal...It  
  
was said to look different from any they had seen." Sakura looked worried.  
  
The past few years of her life had been spent without an attack against her at all.  
  
She usually always had someone seeking her power, though most of them were only too  
  
easy to take care of; only one or two ever made her struggle at all. In total she had dealt  
  
with twenty-odd sorcerers who were out for her power. Now, when a real foe appeared,  
  
she was thoroughly out of practice with using her magic. She needed to train, and train  
  
fast, at that.  
  
"Eriol, Do you think whatever this new power is- will it seek us out?" She  
  
questioned. Eriol, pulling up to her house, let out a sigh.  
  
"Truthfully, I'm not sure. I hope not, because we have to get ourselves prepared,  
  
find out exactly what we're dealing with." Once he noticed he had worried Sakura, he put  
  
the car into park, and turned around in his seat to face her. "But either ways, I have a  
  
strong and capable Card mistress who has done her job perfectly, without warning or  
  
knowledge of the dangers at all, and who I am sure will be able to deal with this new dark  
  
force." He gave her an encouraging smile. She smiled weakly.  
  
"Thanks, Eriol." She stepped out of the car, and went into her house still deeply  
  
worried. She whispered to herself, without thinking, "Wish Li were here to protect me".  
  
'But he isn't' she mentally scolded herself. She then went to her room and took out her  
  
cards. "Time to train," she said to her dear Sakura cards, and began to use them, one by  
  
one. 


	3. Old Allies

---Syaoran---  
  
Syaoran watched the trees fly by him in the window through the Limo's window.  
  
After meeting with the elders and hearing specifics, he was sent straight off to America in  
  
record time. Accompanying him was Eva Hiachi, a powerful seventeen year old sorceress  
  
with exceptional teleporting abilities and accuracy, a deadly combination with her  
  
magical throwing knives. He looked over at his associate.  
  
"So who are we staying with again?" He eyed the stern looking blond woman,  
  
who was typing in her laptop. The girl looked up, brushing a stray lock out of he face  
  
before responding:  
  
"according to the Elders, we're staying with an old ally, Professor Xavier. He is a  
  
minor ally with little to no influence in china, but is respected for his power here in  
  
America." Li thought about this information again, before asking,  
  
"And we still have no idea what type of powers he has, Eva?" She sighed deeply,  
  
pushing her glasses, which were sliding down the bridge of her nose back up, before  
  
responding.  
  
"No idea." She smirked, adding on, "even the elder's minds slip, though they  
  
won't admit it. Now that our New York post has been taken out, we have no choice but to  
  
ask shelter from some obscure, half-forgotten ally who we haven't seen in half a  
  
century." She emitted a short laugh, "And we have no idea what he can do!" She shook  
  
her head in annoyance. "Well, it's no matter- I mean, you are recognized as one of he  
  
most powerful sorcerers in Asia, after all. If your title and power doesn't impress the man  
  
to giving us a place to stay, we can always rent a hotel."  
  
They both smirked at this thought- the Elders would have a fit if they heard that  
  
their leader and top knives mistress were staying at an undignified place such as a hotel.  
  
They both looked up as they pulled up to see stately mansion set atop a hill past elaborate  
  
gates.  
  
The limo driver was about to get out and press the intercom asking for entrance,  
  
when the gates opened by themselves. They continued through, stopping at the front  
  
entrance. Li and Eva got out of the car and got a better look at their surroundings. Li paid  
  
the driver, and they walked up the front steps of the mansion and rang the bell. The two  
  
waited a minute before hearing a loud scuffling on the other side of the door. It was  
  
opened quickly to reveal a girl with blue eyes and hair put up in a short ponytail, wearing  
  
pink. The girl stared at them blankly, mumbling something that distinctly sounded like  
  
"not the pizza boy", before perking up and saying, "Um, hello. Are you looking for  
  
someone here?"  
  
"Yes," Li answered, his voice courteous yet commanding. "I'm here to speak to  
  
professor Xavier."  
  
"You wanna speak to the professor?" She said, questioningly, as he heard the  
  
brunette mentally ask herself, (or so he thought) 'Should I let them come in?'  
  
Li was hard put to hide his surprise when he heard the girl's unspoken question  
  
answered immediately by another powerful mind. 'Yes, please do invite them in. Show  
  
them to the living room. I will meet with them shortly.'  
  
Eva, who had not seemed to pickup on the mental conversation (she had never  
  
had a talent for psychic power), smiled politely as the girl invited them in and walked  
  
ahead of them, leading them to what he'd bet his life on would be the living room.  
  
"If you'd just wait here a moment," The girl pointed cheerily into a doorway, "I'll  
  
get the professor for you in a moment." She then smiled brightly and practically skipped  
  
away.  
  
Eva was about to immediately comply with the said instructions when Li caught  
  
her arm. "Eva, did you hear the conversation outside?" The blonde looked at him  
  
questioningly.  
  
"Of course I did, I-" She was cut off by Li  
  
"No, not that conversation- that girl mentally discussed with someone whether or  
  
not to let us in." Eva looked startled.  
  
"You-you're sure?"  
  
"Dead positive." She nodded, immediately accepting what he had said. Li was  
  
known for his equally excellent skills at mental and physical magic- it was what made  
  
him such a good fighter and leader. "We have to guard our minds." Li bit his lip,  
  
contemplating. "And be careful of what you say here, too. I'd rather not that the professor  
  
knows more about us than he needs to." With that, they prepared to enter the room,  
  
slightly more wary of the inhabitants.  
  
Li and Eva walked inside the room o find that they were not alone- on the  
  
contrary there were at least four others in the room. Li looked around cautiously at the  
  
group. Sitting on the couch was a red headed girl and a brown haired guy wearing shades.  
  
The red head and shades boy looked at the two with mild interest as he felt 'someone'  
  
gently probing his mind. He slammed down his mental barriers, causing the red head to  
  
jump a little in shock. He then relayed to her, 'stay out'.  
  
The girl was so surprised she quickly left the room, followed by the young man  
  
sitting next to her. Shades looked at him suspiciously before following after her. Once  
  
they left, he took notice of everyone else in the room. Eva was talking to a dark skinned  
  
boy with yellow blond hair.  
  
"...Yeah, so welcome to the mansion," he said kindly. "You guys, uh,  
  
are...special too?" Eva, who didn't know how to answer this, looked at Li.  
  
"...You could call it that..." Li responded, not knowing what to say. A girl with  
  
dark brown hair, deep tan skin and dark brown eyes walked up to the boy they were  
  
talking to.  
  
"You guys the new recruits?" she asked politely, her big brown eyes appraising  
  
the tall Chinese boy.  
  
"No," Eva answered, finally feeling like she understood how this place was run.  
  
Instead of counting on family bloodlines like everyone did in Asia, they recruited new  
  
people in their group, or whatever type of organization this was. She quickly and quietly  
  
relayed this information to Li, who sent her a mental thanks.  
  
"so what're you doing here?" she asked inquisitively  
  
"Asking for a favor." The way Li said that left no room for questions.  
  
"Oh. Well, good luck guys, but I gotta get started on my homework. See ya later."  
  
He waved goodbye as he walked off. The girl smiled warmly, and added on, "me too.  
  
Hope I see you two again soon." She followed the blond boy's path out of the room.  
  
The room had emptied by now, leaving the two sorcerers standing uncomfortably  
  
alone. He was just beginning to get an inkling of suspicion that the other people were  
  
mentally told to leave the room, when a man in a wheel chair rolled in.  
  
"Hello, I am Professor Charles Xavier," he said serenely, extending a hand. "I  
  
understand you have some business with me?"  
  
Li and Eva shook hands with the elderly gentleman and told him their names  
  
before Li answered his question. "Yes, I am inquisitive to find out whether the Li family  
  
still has your allegiance."  
  
The Professor looked startled. "The Li Clan? I have not heard from them for  
  
around twenty years, since Li Ryuuren came to this establishment. Since then, none of  
  
your Clan has tried to contact my group of mutants and myself." 'So that's what they  
  
are,' Syaoran thought quietly to himself, careful to keep the thought from becoming  
  
projected. It seemed that Xavier was a telepath.  
  
" Are two you ambassadors for him?"  
  
Eva looked a little bit uncomfortable about explaining Syaoran's father's death,  
  
but she surprisingly didn't have to. "Professor, Li Ryuuren died years ago in battle. I'm  
  
sorry nobody informed you of his death." Syaoran said, trying to keep his expression  
  
emotionless. Eva thought he pulled it off well, other than the fact that he held his breathe  
  
a little afterwards.  
  
The professor looked disheartened by this news. "That's really too bad. He was a  
  
good man, from what I saw when I met him. He was really trying to do good in this  
  
world." He sighed, then looked up. "Well then, who has succeeded in his place?"  
  
"I have, sir." The professor looked even more thoroughly startled. The last time  
  
Ryuuren had come for a visit, he brought along his young son, a three year- old boy with  
  
tousled chocolate colored hair and big brown eyes. He had changed so much he barely  
  
recognized the boy, but the same features he remembered of the child then were still  
  
apparent now.  
  
"...You're Ryuuren's son..." It was more of a statement than a question. Li  
  
nodded. "Hm. I met you once, when you were little; Your father seemed to bring you  
  
everywhere with him."  
  
"Only as long as his trips held no danger and he had a large company. He was  
  
always careful." Syaoran didn't know why he was telling this complete stranger so many  
  
things about him. Yes, he might have known his father, but now was not the time to go  
  
relive old memories, especially with this new, foreboding evil arising.  
  
"But that is beside the point. I came here asking if you still held our allegiance."  
  
The Professor nodded.  
  
"Yes, I do."  
  
"Well, in that case, I'd like to ask you a favor." The Professor stayed silent,  
  
waiting to hear the proposition. "Recently, our New York magical defense post was taken  
  
down by persons unknown. All five sorcerers residing in the area were killed at the same  
  
time, signaling a new evil force growing here, in America." He paused, to let the severity  
  
of his words sink in, and then continued. " Eva and myself were sent here to investigate  
  
this new evil, and as our post has been taken out, we have nowhere to stay." He then  
  
stopped talking, not wanting to invite himself over. The Elders had no tact; they thought  
  
as long as the Ally was not strong, you could walk all over them. Li, however, was  
  
taught, partly by his mother, partly by a young, innocent card captor, to treat everyone  
  
with courtesy; so if the tables turned, he'd have friends there to help him, not new  
  
enemies.  
  
"Well, while you're here, I would love it if you would stay here with my team. I  
  
don't think they even know that sorcerers exist. It would be a pleasant change." Li  
  
bowed, thanking Xavier.  
  
"I'll send someone in to show you your rooms, and later, I will formally introduce  
  
the whole team to you two." He smiled mildly. "oh, yes, and one more thing: I expect  
  
you to participate in all team events here, and highest in priority is the danger Room."  
  
"What exactly is...This danger room?" Eva said, interestedly.  
  
"A simulator that prepares my students and gives them a place to work on their  
  
abilities."  
  
Li smirked. "fighting practice" He said bluntly. The professor nodded. "good, I  
  
needed a way to keep my abilities sharp. Don't worry, we'll be there."  
  
"well, it's good that we have that settled. Your Danger room outfits will be put in  
  
your room as soon as they are finished." A knock came at the door. "Come in, Rogue."  
  
A girl with reddish-brown hair with white stripes in the front and emerald green  
  
eyes, which achingly reminded Li of Sakura, walked in. "Rogue, I would like you to meet  
  
Eva Hiachi and Syaoran Li, two new recruits. Please, would you show them to their new  
  
rooms?" The girl looked at them with a keen, assessing eye, before she nodded to the  
  
Professor and greeted them.  
  
"'Lo, mah name's Rogue, nice ta meet yah." She shook gloved hands with them.  
  
"jus' follow me an' ah'll show ya to yer rooms." She led the way.  
  
"So, Syaoran, Eva, where ya from?" she asked conversationally.  
  
"He's from China," Eva said, "And I'm Hungarian, even though we're related."  
  
That statement caught the girl by surprise.  
  
"Yer related?"  
  
"rather distantly, yes. He's my twice removed second cousin, or something like  
  
that. Why, do we seem so much different?" Rogue laughed.  
  
"Nah, it's just half the mansion's already pegged you two as a couple." Eva and  
  
Syaoran both laughed nervously at that statement.  
  
"No, we're not dating, and how fast does news travel in this place?" Eva asked,  
  
incredulous. "We only got here a half an hour ago..."  
  
Rogue laughed again at this, before answering her, "too fast." She then pointed into a  
  
room. "Eva, yer sharin' a room with Jean," Rogue said, as she pointed into a tidy room  
  
obviously kept by a prep. "You'll probably meet Jean soon. She's a red head with dark  
  
green eyes."  
  
For the first time, Li spoke. "She's a telepath?" rogue looked at him  
  
questioningly, before answering, " No, telekinetic. Though she has telepathic powers to  
  
boot. Why'd ja ask?" Li frowned, slightly, before answering.  
  
"I saw her earlier. She tried to sneak into my head." Rogue's jaw dropped at this.  
  
"She what?" the girl said, stunned. Then, she made a wry grin, and said mostly to  
  
herself," I didn't know that she could break a rule." She then focused back on the two  
  
recruits before her.  
  
"Well, she ain't allowed to do that, and if you find her sneaking into anyone's  
  
head again, don't hesitate to tell the professor. We'ah not supposed to abuse our powahs  
  
like that." She paused for a second. "Which reminds me, what powahs do ya two have?"  
  
Again, the two new students felt a little uncomfortable. "Well, you see, it's a little  
  
hard to explain..."  
  
"ah understand." Rogue said, kindly. "don' worry, round here, everyoe's  
  
different" She smiled and started leading them to Li's room.  
  
"Rogue, I was just wondering, what's your power?" asked Eva. The southern  
  
girl's laid back demeanor died to be replaced with a cold and brooding one.  
  
"Mah powah is your powah, yer memories, your life force," she answered rather  
  
cryptically. "all I need to get all that is one touch." She looked sadly down at her gloved  
  
hands.  
  
"You can't control your powers?" Li said, sympathetically. She nodded, tight  
  
lipped. Syaoran could relate.  
  
When He was fifteen, his powers had begun sky rocketing, growing at exceptional  
  
rates. With all the new energy, Sayoran had a hard time controlling his magic. To  
  
compensate for all the new energy, his body began releasing some of it in the form of  
  
fire, ice, and lightning. Anybody who went within ten feet of him was in danger; anyone  
  
who dared to touch him was spending the night with the healers.  
  
It took him three full months for his body to become used to the magic, three  
  
months that he'd never forget. Even if Li was rather unsociable, he still needed company  
  
every once and a while, someone to have a good sparring match with, or play a game of  
  
chess. With his powers acting as a barrier, he couldn't do any of those things, and had for  
  
a long time afterwards, hated his magical abilities.  
  
"Don't worry," He said comfortingly, surprising both Eva and Rogue. "You'll  
  
learn to control them." Rogue smiled earnestly, before quietly chuckling.  
  
"An I thought that fer a second that you were emotionless." Eva laughed dryly.  
  
"Yes, well, he tries his best to hide that he's human, but he's really one big softy,"  
  
she said, poking him. Syaoran gave Eva his best death glare, a thing he hadn't done in  
  
years. Eva surprised him by hiding behind rogue, who was looking at him with  
  
admiration.  
  
"An' I thought that I was the only one who could pull that off," She said, biting  
  
her lip trying to hold back her laughter. Eva, very uncharacteristically, full heartedly  
  
laughed.  
  
'maybe it was a good thing we got out of the house, away from all the formalities  
  
and responsibilities we have there.' Li thought to himself. He felt a genuine smile from  
  
on his lips. It was too stressful, living there. Yes, it was definitely a good thing. 


	4. Training and strawberries

--- Sakura ---  
  
-CRASH!-  
  
Sakura watched, tense, as another of Eriol's magicked sticks was taken down, this  
  
time by the fiery card. She waited in anticipation for the next attack. She heard a loud  
  
'whoosh' and ducked just in time for a stick to go flying over her head.  
  
"Loop! Maze!" She cried, and the two cards trapped the stick in a never-ending  
  
maze. She sent fiery inside, and fiery burned up the stick. She again heard the all to  
  
familiar 'whoosh' from behind her and quickly cried, "Shield!" a fraction of a second  
  
later, the stick hit the shield, bouncing away with a loud 'thwack'. It flew up into the air  
  
of it's own accord, trying to escape.  
  
"You're not getting away! Sword! Power! Fly!" She called all of the cards in  
  
succession, taking off from the ground in hot pursuit of the offending stick. It still flew to  
  
fast for her. She cried out, frustrated for a moment, before she shouted, "dash!" and flew  
  
at an incredible speed, quickly catching up to the offending stick and slicing it neatly in  
  
half.  
  
That was a bad move on her part, as she quickly found out. The two pieces few to  
  
either side of her and before she could react, hit her on either side. She lost her grasp on  
  
the cards, and helpless, dropped.  
  
"AAAHHHH!" She desperately tried summoning windy, but had no time. She  
  
balled up and closed her eyes... Only to find that she hadn't hit the ground. She opened  
  
her eyes to see the grass three inches from her nose. Then, she fell down completely.  
  
"ERIOL!" she yelled, lifting her face off the ground. " you could have stood me  
  
up, or something!" she said, spitting grass out of her mouth. "but NOOO, you just had to  
  
DROP ME!" She gave him an evil glare, remarkably like Syaoran's.  
  
Eriol smiled serenely, annoying the hell out of the Card Mistress. "I'm sorry,  
  
Sakura, but it was too hard to hold you up. It's not easy to stop a person from hitting the  
  
ground after a fifty-foot freefall. In fact," he said, amusion written all over hi face,  
  
"shouldn't you be thanking me for saving your life?"  
  
Sakura grumbled, getting up and brushing the grass off of her clothes. "yeah, I'm  
  
happy I'm still alive, but I blame the endangerment of my life on you, so it was your duty  
  
to save me. No need for thanks."  
  
Eriol sighed, chuckling. When Sakura became stubborn, there was no way to  
  
change her mind. "well, it's lunch time," he said, getting a loud, "hurray!" from Sakura  
  
before she dashed over towards Eriols house, famished from practicing her magic. Eriol  
  
followed behind her, not running though h was equally hungry. Magicking all those  
  
objects to attack the Card mistress was no easy task.  
  
He smiled at Sakura, she was the same happy, innocent girl she had been seven  
  
years ago. She had lost some of her innocence, of course, how couldn't she with all those  
  
boys looking at her suggestively- She had grown up to be quite the looker-, but she was  
  
still the fearless, caring girl that made her such a good card captor.  
  
He came inside his house to see Sakura eating her food at a phenomenal pace,  
  
next to Tomoyo, who was laughing at her hungry friend  
  
"Hard practice?" she asked both of them, judging by Eriol's weary look and  
  
Sakura's ravenous hunger. Eriol half collapsed into his chair, thankfully piling food on  
  
his plate.  
  
"Yes, it was a very hard practice," Eriol answered as Sakura's mouth was still  
  
full, "and thank you for preparing this delicious meal for us." Tomoyo smiled brightly at  
  
him before getting herself a plate so she could eat with them.  
  
Once Sakura's hunger had receded so that she didn't inhale food like Kero,  
  
Sakura thanked her friend for making the meal too. "thank you, Tomoyo," she said  
  
happily, making her best friend smile.  
  
"It was no problem. I'd do it any day for my best friend and my perfect  
  
boyfriend," she said, pecking Eriol on the cheek, causing the sorcerer to smile just a little  
  
dreamily.  
  
Just after that, the phone rang, waking Eriol up out of his dreamy state. "Excuse  
  
me, Ladies," he said, as he went to get the phone. He walked into the parlor, an answered  
  
the phone.  
  
"Hello, Hirigawza residence," he said as usual.  
  
"hello, Eriol? It's me, Joshua." Immediately, The reincarnation snapped to  
  
attention.  
  
"Joshua, did out find out anything about whats going on in America?"  
  
"not much." The man answered, "but I thought you'd like to hear this. The Clans  
  
are becoming impatient, Eriol, they want someone to do something about it immediately,  
  
namely a certain card mistress, along with yourself." Eriol cursed quietly.  
  
"So none of those fools have done a thing about the circumstances in America?"  
  
Eriol asked.  
  
"Of course they have. The Li Clan immediately sent two of their most capable  
  
sorcerers to go and investigate the predicament. Right now, they're staying with a group  
  
of mutant allies in the states. Later, other houses will send people, too."  
  
"So then why are they calling for our help?" Eriol nearly hissed into the phone.  
  
"You know it would have happened sooner or later, Eriol. They have seen no  
  
proof that the cards mistress really exists, or is actually powerful." Eriol sighed. "People  
  
are beginning to think the clow cards are just a fairy tale."  
  
"I told you already, they're no longer Clow cards." Eriol sat down, highly  
  
frustrated at the news.  
  
"That's besides the point. Eriol, if you and this card mistress don't go looking for  
  
this new evil soon, the clans will go looking for you. For the sake o hiding your identities,  
  
you're going to have to look into this."  
  
Eriol held his head. "I know."  
  
"then I suggest you get out of Japan soon, my friend. The Clan searches will  
  
begin in one week."  
  
"Thanks, Joshua."  
  
"No problem. Bye."  
  
Joshua hung up. Eriol put the phone back into it's cradle. "There goes our peace."  
  
He said to himself, and hung his head.  
  
Downcast, he came back into the kitchen. Sakura and Tomoyo had cleaned up  
  
from lunch time and had set out a dessert of strawberries with cream and chocolate.  
  
Sakura was munching on a chocolate covered strawberry and Tomoyo was dipping one in  
  
cream.  
  
"eriol, something wrong?" Tomoyo asked, noticing his saddened expression.  
  
"no, nothing at all." He quickly regained his composure and gave her a smile.  
  
Tomoyo looked suspicious of him, but then finally bought his lie. Sakura was completely  
  
unaware of his bad mood; she was still happily munching on her strawberry, looking  
  
quite pleased with herself for some reason.  
  
"Well then, come on and eat some of the dessert Sakura brought for us," she said  
  
smiling warmly. Despite his sadness, he couldn't help but smile at the way Tomoyo  
  
looked at him. he was so lucky to have her. He sat down next to Tomoyo, and grabbed a  
  
strawberry. As soon as he sat down, Sakura jumped up, saying, "Well, I'm finished!  
  
Guess I'll just leave you two to finish the dessert. See you guys tomorrow for practice!"  
  
And with that, she strolled out of the house, barely hiding her mile wide grin. Once  
  
outside, she broke into giggles.  
  
"Eriol, I can't believe it, but I think she's-" Tomoyo was stopped mid-sentence  
  
when a cream topped strawberry was placed in her mouth. She bit it, and looked at Eriol,  
  
who she had noticed had gotten closer to her. She swallowed the strawberry with a slight  
  
blush and a smile.  
  
"You're right, Tomoyo, she is setting us up," He said, leaning closer to her,  
  
blowing on to her neck causing her to get chills. She closed her eyes, giving in to the  
  
feeling.  
  
"And you know," he added on, lazily, giving her a light kiss, "I think it's  
  
working." He pulled her closer to him as she scooted onto his lap and gave her a long,  
  
passionate kiss.  
  
'Thanks, Sakura' he mentally projected to the girl, who was already a block away.  
  
He could feel her laughter.  
  
'No problem.' 


	5. The Danger Room

--- Syaoran ---  
  
For the rest of the day, Rogue had shown the two around the mansion and told  
  
them all the secrets of surviving at the school, like waking up extra early to get a hot  
  
shower, to coaxing Mr. McCoy to let you out of the Med Lab with baked goods.  
  
They met most of the students in the school; all of them were very nice, and tried  
  
to make them feel at home. Finally, the afternoon rolled around, and with it, afternoon  
  
danger room sessions. Rogue walked them back to their rooms before going back to hers,  
  
telling them she'd meet up with them in the danger room.  
  
Syaoran went to his room, which he found out earlier that he shared with Kurt,  
  
with no idea what to do. Kurt, who had already finished changing, asked him what was  
  
wrong.  
  
"Umm, the professor told to wear a suit like yours, but I don't see any." He  
  
looked around, a little uncomfortable. He could always wear his ceremonial fighting  
  
robes, he thought.  
  
"don't vorry," Kurt said, eagerly bamfing all over the room looking for is outfit.  
  
"I –bamf- know –bamf- it's gotta –bamf- be here –bamf- somewhere! –bamf- Ahh, found  
  
it!" Syaoran opened the closet, hearing the boy's voice coming from around it. The blue  
  
boy was holding up a black body suit with slashes of forest green across it.  
  
"Well, go put it on, before ve are late," the mutant said, going outside of the room  
  
to give Syaoran privacy to change.  
  
Syaoran came out five minutes later, inspecting his outfit. His sleeves went  
  
halfway down his upper arms, which would make it easier for him to parry with his  
  
sword- no cloth restricting him. Slung around his waist were two black belts, held  
  
together and in place with one yellow buckle with the 'X' emblem on it; they were  
  
perfect for holding a few extra items, like a dagger or a few potions. His pants hugged  
  
tight to his legs until a little before his knees, creating some space for him to hide a  
  
throwing knife- perfect. And the last touch was a zip up collar that could unzip one-fourth  
  
ways down his chest- that way, he could keep his ying yang sword pendant hidden.  
  
Finishing up the outfit with light but sturdy boots, he approved of the outfit immensely.  
  
"Hey, Syaoran- wow!" The blue boy looked at his outfit. "Man, zat looks really  
  
good on you- but ve have to get going!"  
  
He was about to grab on to the Chinese boy and bamf them into the danger room  
  
when Syaoran said, "wait a second." Kurt watched stunned, as Li opened his bags and  
  
pulled out, one by one, various weapons and hid them in his outfit.  
  
"Whoa! Do you usually carry around thiz many weapons?" Li smirked.  
  
"No, actually, I usually carry more." The blue boy shook his head at him before  
  
grabbing his arm and bamfing them to the danger room.  
  
Once inside, he caught sight of Eva, who was also wearing a bodysuit, though  
  
hers was ice blue on navy blue, and the cut was different. Hers had a v- neck with a  
  
normal shirt collar, and her sleeves went all the way down to her hands where they  
  
gripped the backside of her hands, giving her protection from attack. She was also  
  
wearing contacts, something she normally did anyways, for dependably better vision.  
  
He noticed a lot of the girls checking him out, as the boys also did to Eva. He  
  
stopped himself from rolling his eyes; he couldn't stand swooning girls. Eva completely  
  
ignored the attention, ready to get to work.  
  
Soon after, the man everyone called Wolverine walked in, looking at the new  
  
recruits with measured ease. The professor came in shortly after.  
  
"Students," the professor began, "I'd like you to greet our two new students, Li  
  
Syaoran and Eva Hiachi, if you have not met them yet." Everyone mumbled their hellos.  
  
"Oh, and I should mention, their powers are very different from ours. You see, these two  
  
are not mutants, they are sorcerers," The group broke out into chatter at that- they were  
  
sorcerers? They mostly thought. "Actually, Li is the head of a prominent group of  
  
sorcerers. Eva also happens to be, from what I understand, a knives master, correct?"  
  
Eva nodded politely. "Like, really? That's so cool!" The chipper brunette said,  
  
excited.  
  
" ...S'makin' my head spin..." Rogue mumbled. "soon enough, they'll be telling  
  
me that Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny are real." A few students snickered.  
  
"now if everyone would please in order state their names and powers, giving our  
  
two new students a brief display."  
  
"Hey, I'm Spike," said the dark skinned blond boy whom they had met earlier. "I  
  
can grow out spikes, a shoot them at enemies. He displayed by shooting off two bits of  
  
wood.  
  
"I'm Bobby," said a blond haired boy, "and I can transform into and create ice."  
  
He created an ice heart handing it to Eva, who looked at it with mild interest before  
  
putting it down, discouraging the boy.  
  
"M' Rogue, n' ah already explained about mah powahs." Nobody said anything to  
  
that.  
  
"I'm Jamie, also known as Multiple" he said as one of the other students gave him  
  
a light push and he broke into two replicas of himself. "and this is my power," They said  
  
in unison.  
  
"I'm kitty," said the girl who had showed the in. "I can go through solid objects,"  
  
she said, walking through Spike. Spike looked a little surprised. But it quickly wore off.  
  
"I'm Scott," said shades, staring intensely at Li. " I can shoot laser beams with my  
  
eyes." He picked up the ice heart and threw it in the air, before blasting it into million  
  
pieces. Bobby was glowering.  
  
"I'm Amara, you already met me," she said nicely, as her body turned into fire.  
  
"This is my power."  
  
"As you know, my name viz Kurt," said the blue elf, "But I am also known as ze  
  
incredible Nightcrawler!" a few of his teammates laughed companionably at his  
  
statement.  
  
"And I'm Jean," The tall red head said, avoiding the Chinese boy's gaze. " I have  
  
telepathic powers," she demonstrated by lifting herself into the air.  
  
"Well, now that everyone has introduced themselves," The professor spoke, "It is  
  
time to test our new recruits." He looked at the two Asians. "Before you work with the  
  
team, Logan is going to run a simulation testing your abilities. This way, we can see your  
  
strengths, weaknesses, and ability level. Just wave your hands to tell us when you can no  
  
longer fight, and we will turn off the simulation or Kurt will port you out."  
  
Li nodded in understanding. Eva said a low, "understood."  
  
"Then get ready," Logan said in his usual low growl. Everyone left the room in  
  
exception for the sorcerers.  
  
They heard the computer state, "Simulation beginning in 5-4-3-2-1-"... and that's  
  
when the fun began.  
  
Immediately after countdown, they saw a single robot coming their way. Li  
  
arched his eyebrow. From the way the students went on about this room with fear, he'd  
  
thought it'd be more of a challenge. Eva seemed to be thinking along the same lines, too.  
  
"Let me handle this one," she said, before she chanted and the two gold rings she  
  
wore on each of her middle fingers transformed into small, transparent throwing knives.  
  
The Mutants watched with interest as one of Eva's knives began to slightly glow with  
  
blue light. She made a throwing motion, and the blue energy flew out of the crystal knife,  
  
still holding the shape of a dagger, and hit the robot square in it's chest. It blew apart,  
  
pieces of ice ripping through the droid with uncanny ease.  
  
"Whoa," Multiple finally wheezed, saying what was on everyone's mind.  
  
Eva, on the other hand, looking up to the station, shouted, "How about you give  
  
us a challenge? Skip the easy part." Logan was all to ready to comply. He went directly  
  
to level five, where most of the year-old recruits lost. The older ones could make it to six,  
  
or even seven, and only the adults could make it to eight or nine. Wolverine was the only  
  
one to make it to ten.  
  
The students watched with awe as the two sorcerers ripped through their  
  
obstacles- Eva transporting herself out of danger in a halo of white light only to end up in  
  
a strategically better position to tear apart the machines with her deadly knives. Li, on the  
  
other hand, would simply summon up elements with his hands- throw fireballs, rain  
  
thunderbolts, create wind shields, and shoot water- and all of these elemental attacks  
  
were incredibly destructive.  
  
As time went on, the simulation got increasingly harder- Eva and Li, who had for  
  
the most part been working independently of each other, started working together. Eva's  
  
trick of porting into weak spots no longer worked- whenever she got there, she wouldn't  
  
have enough time to throw a knife before she herself would be hit.  
  
She ported over to Li's side- He was having trouble destroying all the projectiles  
  
flying his way. He had already been nicked by a razor disc on the arm; luckily the cut  
  
was shallow. Once there, she helped fend off the flying objects before grabbing onto his  
  
arm and porting him, too, into the laser's blind spots. While he created a wind shield  
  
repelling all attacks, the knives master worked her magic (literally) and took them out  
  
with a lightning fast barrage of fire and ice knives with deadly accuracy.  
  
She ported them back into a circle of robots, each of them ready to strike with  
  
various weapons, but the Li heir pulled Eva closer before summoning an erratic  
  
downpour of lightning around the two of them, effectively demolishing all the bots.  
  
Then Syaoran let Eva go, only to do a complicated dance around one of the  
  
sentinel simulations, giving the girl time to strike a few decisively fatal blows.  
  
Meanwhile, their onlookers watched with bated breaths- they were at level eight,  
  
a feat in itself, fighting to get to level nine.  
  
But sadly, the twosome were starting to lose- Eva had taken a bad hit to the head,  
  
and Li, who had already been hit several times, but endured it, was getting a little  
  
unstable on his legs. They watched with anxiety as Eva chose to port in a bad spot and  
  
get repeatedly hit by the lasers- she waved her hands in defeat.  
  
"Go get er', fuzz ball." Logan said to Kurt, who quickly complied. He came back  
  
an instant later with a thoroughly beaten up Eva and was nursing a bruised hand.  
  
"Ouch!" he cried, rubbing his hand before helping Eva up. "It's a war zone in  
  
there! I was in there for only a moment and I was hit!" Eva merely shrugged as he helped  
  
bring her down to the Med Lab- she hadn't gotten really hurt; she'd just sport a bunch of  
  
nicks and bruises for a few days.  
  
With Eva out of the running, Li was having a bad time of it himself- for every ten  
  
projectiles sent at him now, he was hit by at least one. He set up a wind shield as various  
  
objects barraged him from all sides.  
  
He couldn't hold on to the shield forever, though, and as soon as he dropped it he  
  
was hit by two metal balls and a laser before he could even try to evade them. Halfway  
  
through a backhand spring, he yet again summoned the erratic lightning, though now,  
  
they saw, he himself had gotten slightly singed by one of the smaller bolts. The lightning  
  
gave him a quarter of a second to escape before the onslaught came again- but this time,  
  
he was too tired to evade them. He got hit several times. He followed Eva's suit and  
  
threw up his hands.  
  
"Simulation Terminated" The computer spoke, as all the weapons went lifeless  
  
and hid back in the walls.  
  
While all the students poured out into the room to help Li, Logan read the  
  
computer screen with slight disbelief. In bright red words, it was flashing SIMULATION  
  
TERMINATED: LEVEL NINE. On their first tries, Eva ha made into level eight and the  
  
Li boy had just gotten in to level nine, an impressing feat, especially at such a young age.  
  
He looked out onto the room where Syaoran sat, immobile, surrounded by the team.  
  
"Whoa, man! That was hella cool!" Evan said, falling into his city accent, as Scott  
  
helped Syaoran get to the Med Lab, the team trailing behind them.  
  
"Yeah, you two totally trashed the place!" Bobby laughed, remembering all the  
  
debris on the ground.  
  
Li kept stoically silent, smiling in thanks to their praises, as they entered the Med  
  
Lab, where Eva was sitting, getting checked up by the newly acquainted Mr. McCoy.  
  
Kitty was bubbling. "That was so, like, totally awesome, you two!" she exploded,  
  
jumping around. "You must be the first two students to make it this far- and you did it on  
  
your first day!" she squealed with laughter.  
  
"Shit ya'll two pack a punch," Rogue said. Kitty looked at her reprovingly, clearly  
  
giving her a 'no bad language around the younger students' look. Rogue pointedly  
  
ignored it. "Hey, can I borrow one of ya'll guys power some time, for a test drive?"  
  
"Not today, I'm so beaten up I can feel buises forming over my bruises." Eva  
  
said, uncharacteristically. Usually Eva wouldn't say a thing about her injuries at all even  
  
if she was bleeding to death. She didn't ever like to be seen as weak.  
  
Most of the students laughed. "Too hot to handle," Amara said, beaming at them.  
  
"Yes-very impressive" Jean finally spoke.  
  
"Okay guys, let's give them some room now," said Scott, ever the leader. " They  
  
have to be checked up by Dr. McCoy." Soon, everyone filed out in exception to the two  
  
Asians and the blue doctor.  
  
"Well, Eva," The large blue man said gently, "you'll be fine in no time. I'd like  
  
you just to rest in that room-" He pointed towards a door at the end of the hall, "-for  
  
fifteen minutes, you're free to go."  
  
"Alright. Thank you, doctor, see you later, Syaoran," and with that, she hobbled  
  
off to the appointed room. The Doctor then turned towards his second patient.  
  
"And you are Syaoran, I presume, the new recruit?"  
  
"Yes, sir, I am." Li replied  
  
" Yes, I've heard a lot about you from the Professor. Nice to meet you, my name  
  
is Mr.McCoy. Now just sit over here for a moment, and I'll check you up" The kind  
  
doctor greeted, while ushering Li to a seat.  
  
"N-ah-ice to meet you, too" he said, wincing in pain as the doctor's hand  
  
accidentally brushed against one of his worse cuts.  
  
"my, my, young fellow," he said, examining some of his cuts, "you took quite a  
  
beating in there." He tutted at the boys condition. "Where does it hurt,- I mean where  
  
does it hurt the most?" he asked, seeing that the boy was probably hurting all over.  
  
"Mostly my chest," he said, putting a tentative hand over the sore spot. The doctor  
  
frowned.  
  
"Hmm..." he said, mumbling aloud half to himself, half to Syaoran. "I have to  
  
check to see if you have bruised ribs. Well then, if you'd please take off you're shirt." Li  
  
complied, cautiously peeling off the top half of his danger room outfit to cause less pain.  
  
Meanwhile, the doctor busied himself with antiseptics and gauze to clean the cuts.  
  
When he turned around to look at Li, his jaw dropped: The boy was covered with scars.  
  
"Mr. Li...How did you..." was all he could say. The young man scowled and  
  
answered his unasked questions.  
  
"I got them in fights," he answered curtly, bending over slightly trying to hide  
  
them. But they were still there, plain as day- the slash across his upper left arm that ran  
  
over a little onto his chest; the deep cut across the right side of his waist; the light white  
  
scar that ran across his stomach.  
  
"Those were quite some fights you had," McCoy said, trying to gain his  
  
composure.  
  
"Yeah, well leading a powerful clan isn't a no-risk business," he said darkly. "In  
  
general, when a new leader is chosen in our family, they are targeted by most of the rest  
  
of the magical community, for one reason or another." He shifted uncomfortably,  
  
waiting. "Well, am I okay?"  
  
The doctor snapped back to the task at hand. "oh, yes. Well, let me just feel how  
  
they are..." The doctor gently touched his ribs, but couldn't help getting distracted by the  
  
scars. How could such a young boy rule one of the most powerful and influential houses  
  
of sorcery? It was a crime, really, to place all that responsibility on such a young man.  
  
Because of it, he probably didn't have a normal childhood- and is now scarred for life,  
  
physically, and emotionally.  
  
"Well, you're just fine. It's a good thing that you're such a strong boy though-  
  
normally when people take a beating like that, they sometimes get hairline fractures in  
  
their ribs, a very unpleasant experience, take it from me." He gave the boy a gentle pat.  
  
"Now just don't work yourself that hard in the danger room again, though, understood?  
  
Doctor's orders"  
  
"Yes. Mr. McCoy" he said, trying to act humble and failing miserably. Humble  
  
was just one of the things he could never be. "Thank you." He got up to leave.  
  
"Excuse me, young sir, but where do you think you're going?" The doctor asked,  
  
tapping his foot, making the blue beast man look rather comical.  
  
Li hid his smile before answering, "Well, you said I was fine, so-"  
  
"I said that you would not have any long lasting damage. Not that you are free to  
  
go. On the contrary, we have those cuts to worry about- you'd leave them that way,  
  
unclean, uncovered?" He looked pointedly at the young heir.  
  
"Don't worry about him," Came a voice coming up from behind the two of  
  
them- Eva. She walked up next to the blue doctor. "Li's a healer, which means he'll  
  
naturally,-or technically,- magically heal faster, without even having to use his healing  
  
skills at all." She smiled wickedly. "I swear, you could beat that boy half to death, only to  
  
find him up and about in a hour. He's like a weed."  
  
"Nice to see that I'm loved," Li bantered sarcastically.  
  
"Oh, really, you're a healer?" the beast asked, forgetting about the undressed cuts.  
  
"Yes, he is, and a very good one at that" Eva responded for him. Li pretended to  
  
look touched. "I think it's half the reason I deal with him. Nothing makes you feel better  
  
after a long sparring lesson than his healing skills- except maybe a cup of coffee."  
  
Eva bit her lip trying to stop herself from laughing at the stubborn leader, who  
  
was at the moment shooting her a death glare. The doctor, oblivious to their teasing,  
  
continued questioning them, eagerly curious.  
  
"Oh, really? Could you please demonstrate this ability, Li? I'd like to watch you  
  
heal yourself." He looked at Syaoran with rapt attention.  
  
Li simply responded, "I can't." The beast looked a little crestfallen.  
  
"Well, if you're too weak right now-" The Chinese boy cut him off.  
  
"No, it's not like that," he persisted. "I can heal others, but I can't heal myself."  
  
"What? I don't understand..." Said the blue beast, pondering. "Would you kindly  
  
clarify why this is so?"  
  
Yet again, Eva answered for Li. "Healing is a completely different system of  
  
magic than the fighting type. In fighting, for the most part, you take the magical energy  
  
from the things around you; like every time he used the element water, he called upon  
  
water for energy, using only a little of his own magic to call for it and form it."  
  
Now Syaoran spoke up, taking over the converation "But with healing, you take  
  
little to no magic out of the environment- all the power fueling the healing process comes  
  
from the healer. Thus, I cannot give my own magic to myself."  
  
The beast smiled, enlightened. "Ah. So then, will you please heal Eva for me?" Li  
  
shot Eva a dark grin.  
  
"No, I won't." He responded obstinately. The beast looked very puzzled, still  
  
oblivious to their baiting each other.  
  
"But I thought you said you could heal others..." He looked quite confused.  
  
"I can," Li responded, "But I won't because she's been teasing me to no end." He  
  
smiled at Eva evilly. This time, she scowled. "Next time you have a patient, though, feel  
  
free to call me in." Li continued, complacently. The doctor chuckled at their torturing  
  
each other.  
  
"Well, your both free to go, then." He watched them walk out of the Med Lab,  
  
still bickering at each other. 'Li may be scarred,' he thought, 'but at last he has a friend to  
  
help him get through it.' He smiled and started filing some papers. 


	6. New York bound

First-  
  
I'd like to thank my reviewers, especially Higaki, who did one review for each chapter, along with some very helpful constructive criticism. I didn't know by putting down five chapters I might make the story seem less good, so thanx.  
I'd also like to thank drownin' my tears- I double spaced it in word, but it just didn't come out that way for some reason.  
And finally, I'd like to thank Heather-hezzer-and-honoluki, Here's my update for you. Right now, I need all the help I can get- this is my first fanfic. So here's one more Ch., but sooner or later I'm going to have to slow down on writing these.  
  
On with the story!  
  
--- Sakura ---  
  
"Eriol, Tomoyo said you wanted to talk to me about something?" Sakura asked  
  
after work, after pulling away from Tomoyo's house  
  
"...Yes..." He replied, surprising the girl with the slight twinge of sorrow his  
  
voice held. Usually his twisted sense of humor could cover up anything, or at least baffle  
  
the listeners enough so they wouldn't notice it. She remembered him one time, when  
  
Sakura's powers had increased tremendously while the three of them were out on a  
  
picnic. Somehow, Eriol distracted the nearby couple enough for them not to notice her  
  
very noticeable display of power, and did this without using his powers. She still  
  
wondered how he did it.  
  
"...Um, ah...Well?" she coaxed him, questioningly.  
  
"...Sakura, you know that new evil I spoke about, a few weeks ago?" he began as  
  
he made a left turn. The honey haired girl nodded solemnly; If the talk was going in this  
  
direction, then she knew she really did have to worry.  
  
"Well, since then, I'm sure you have noticed those dark powers have grown  
  
stronger." Yes, she had, though she tried desperately to ignore it. Lately, it had tended to  
  
cast a shadow on her days.  
  
"Well, needless to say, you and I are not the only people noticing the change in  
  
climate," he continued, slowly making his way to why they were really having this  
  
conversation. "A growing number of the magical community have gown wary and want  
  
to take action against it."  
  
"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Sakura said hopefully. Eriol simply sighed.  
  
"No, it isn't good news, not for us anyway. Sakura, the people want us to deal  
  
with it." Now that caught her by surprise. For the most part, Sakura thought herself  
  
unknown by the magical public- She had only met three of four sorcerers other than  
  
herself, Syaoran, and Eriol, and none of them seemed to have recognized her.  
  
"What?..." She said weakly. "You mean people have heard of me?" The message  
  
sunk deeper into her head. "And they want me us to fly half way around the globe to fix  
  
this problem?"  
  
"exactly," Eriol answered, tiredly. "The only reason sorcerers aren't flocking our  
  
way is that they know we- the card captor and reincarnation, exist, but have no clue of  
  
our identities or where we live." He finished, reading her thoughts.  
  
"But, if we don't start investigating this new danger as of the end of this week,  
  
we'll have a massive search party of worried sorcerers on our tails, insisting we do our  
  
job- protect the people." So more less, the public had given them an ultimatum: Do  
  
something about this problem or we destroy your privacy.  
  
"so you see, Sakura, there's no way around it- we have to go." He parked the car  
  
in front of Sakura's house. "I've already asked you father's permission for yourself,  
  
Tomoyo and I to go to New York for a month. He said you could go as long as you  
  
agreed to it." They sat there for a while in silence.  
  
"You don't have to go, you know, Sakura," Eriol said after a while. "It'd be hard  
  
to persuade the public, but I bet they'd accept it if I was there." He lied. If the Li Clan  
  
was investigating and the public was still restless, it was a very big problem. No matter  
  
how powerful they were, they wouldn't be able to hide for long under the searching eyes  
  
of the sorcerering world.  
  
"But I will," Sakura answered, decisively although he could tell that she was  
  
unsure of herself. "It's my duty to protect others because I have the abilities to do so- I  
  
mean, somebody has to standup for those who can't do it themselves, right?"  
  
Eriol simply looked at the girl with admiration. Here she was, being forced half  
  
way across the world to god knows what dangers by lesser sorcerers, and here she was,  
  
accepting and actually defending those who gave her no choice. She could always find a  
  
good spin on anything.  
  
"I suppose, yes." Eriol said absent-mindedly, before continuing in a business-like  
  
manner, "Well, I'm happy I'll have you're help on this matter. Other than that, I'd like  
  
you to know the flight leaves on Friday at five. We're renting a house out in Westchester  
  
County for a month. I already gave your father all the information he needs to reach you."  
  
He finally gave her a twisted smile. "And, I already told Kero to bite you awake, if  
  
needed."  
  
She looked at him, surprised and a tad angry as she got out of the car. "You did  
  
what?!"  
  
"Just to make sure you get there on time," He said lightly, scrupulously covering  
  
up his grin, which she still noticed.  
  
"You're just too...You!" Sakura cried exasperated. Eriol had his own unique, and  
  
rather strange form of humor, that few understood. He was just lucky that Tomoyo was  
  
one of the few who did- Well, she had a strange sense of humor like he did, though  
  
slightly different.  
  
"Goodbye, Sakura. I'll see you on the plane on Friday," He said, pulling out of his  
  
spot in front of her house. She grumbled the whole way up to her house.  
  
* Saturday *- Eriol's P.O.V.  
  
Tomoyo and Sakura had fallen asleep in the back seat of Eriol's rental as they  
  
drove away from airport- from the time zone changes, although it was the middle of the  
  
day in America, to them, it felt like four in the morning. Despite Eriol's wise advisement  
  
for his two companions to rest on the flight, they did nothing of the sort, bubbling about  
  
going all the way to America and speaking with some of the other passengers. By the end  
  
of the long flight, they knew just about everyone aboard the plane, but not had a moment  
  
of rest.  
  
Eriol chuckled as he remembered trying to get them out of the airport. They were  
  
so tired, that they were prepared to fall asleep on the carpeted floors of the terminal. It  
  
was really quite a funny picture: Sakura already passed out, her head in Tomoyo's lap,  
  
and Tomoyo herself leaning back on to the wall, barely able to keep her eyes open to see  
  
her boyfriend trying to rouse the two of them. He stole a glance into the backseat to see  
  
that they were in much the same way, with Tomoyo sitting up, and Sakura resting her  
  
head on her best friend's lap.  
  
He pulled off the I-95 and started weaving through the streets, getting slightly lost  
  
before finally finding the house they had rented out. It was a small, pretty house, painted  
  
sky blue with white shutters and flower boxes hanging out the front windows, a pretty  
  
little cherry willow tree placed in the front yard. White fence surrounded the yard, and  
  
the entrance was a little latch gate with a white trellis, bedecked with roses thanks to two  
  
little rose bushes planted on either side of it.  
  
It was too bad the girls weren't awake- It would have been fun to hear their  
  
reactions, something along the lines of 'kawaii!' and a kiss from Tomoyo for picking out  
  
such a good place...Yeah, it really was too bad, now he didn't get that kiss. He got out of  
  
the car and hauled all their luggage in, before deciding he'd have to wake up the girls. He  
  
brought them in one at a time, first picking up Sakura and resting her on her new bed,  
  
before getting Tomoyo. He gave his love a light kissed, which she stirred from, smiling  
  
and whispering a barely comprehensible, "Eriol" before passing out again. He smiled  
  
lovingly, tenderly, at her, before gently picking her up and laying her down on her bed.  
  
He gave her another light kiss.  
  
"Sleep well, my angel."  
  
Sakura's P.O.V.-  
  
Sakura's eyes slowly fluttered open as she began to wake up... She had been having a  
  
good dream. She closed her eyes, trying to remember what is was about. She remembered  
  
Dreaming of when she was young- one of the days the whole class took a trip to the  
  
beach. Everyone had a good time that day. She remembered that she was swimming,  
  
trying to catch up to Li .  
  
She scrunched her eyes, trying to focus harder. She remembered that she had  
  
swum so far, she had made it across the ocean- what a crazy dream- before she stopped,  
  
finally catching up to Li. But when she had seen Li...the dream was starting to slip from  
  
her, she tried remembering even harder- he was not the same. He seemed older, much  
  
older- he radiated feelings of pain, unbearable responsibility, and hurt.  
  
'Maybe this wasn't such a good dream after all' she thought to herself as she tried  
  
to remember the last grains of the dream. She had gone up to him, trying to comfort him,  
  
trying to soothe away his pain, which at first he shied away from, until giving in and  
  
letting her ease his tortured soul. But all of a sudden, she felt him tense up. She felt him  
  
shove her away before he turned around to face...something...she remembered his  
  
agonized cry as shadows engulfed him, her reaching out, trying to save him- their fingers,  
  
she could feel their fingers brushing against one another! But she missed. No, it wasn't a  
  
pleasant dream at all.  
  
She opened her eyes, and her thoughts immediately snapped o the present- Where  
  
was she? Last time she had been awake, she remembered getting into a rental car with the  
  
help of Eriol...Now she wasn't in a car, she was in a room on a bed!  
  
She sat up trying to push away her drowsiness from her sleep, forcing down a  
  
yawn as she got off the bed to inspect her new environment. She walked out of the room,  
  
and found herself in a hallway. "I must be at the house we rented," she said aloud to  
  
herself.  
  
"Hm..." She quietly wandered around, looking inside each door as she went  
  
down the hall. 'Bathroom, closet, empty room,..' she quietly thought to herself as she  
  
opened up each door. She opened up the next to find Eriol and Tomoyo making out on a  
  
bed. Sakura became a violent shade of magenta and quickly turned around, hoping they  
  
didn't notice her. Surprisingly, they didn't- they were a little preoccupied exploring each  
  
other's mouths.  
  
She found her way into the kitchen and saw that somebody must have gone on a  
  
shopping spree as there was food in the fridge- She poured herself a bowl of cereal and  
  
started munching away. She ate in silence until ten minutes later, a breathless Tomoyo  
  
and a dreamy looking Eriol showed up. She smiled into her cereal- they didn't know she  
  
had seen them!  
  
"Morning sleepyhead!" Tomoyo said energetically, tousling her hair like she was  
  
a little girl.  
  
"hey Tomoyo, and what are you doing?!" Tomoyo simply laughed, and said  
  
mostly to herself, "Sakura is so Kawaii when she wakes up!" She beamed at her friend.  
  
"Sakura, silly, we're in America! Oh, there is so much I want to do- So much I  
  
want to see- we'll have to go to New York City, yes, and see a Broadway show (of  
  
course!), and go to the Metropolitan Museum, or Natural History, or the Guggenheim,  
  
and go all over SoHo, see the Statue of Liberty, and to little Italy..."Sakura's best friend  
  
went in a daze from thinking of everything she wanted to do. "It's already four (pm), we  
  
don't have much of the day left!"  
  
"And we'll do it all, my love," Eriol said calmly to her. She gave him a stunning  
  
smile, followed by a sweet kiss.  
  
Sakura just smiled at their antics- She hadn't seen Tomoyo this excited since their  
  
old card capturing days. She herself was starting to catch Tomoyo's good mood, as was  
  
Eriol, though she wasn't sure if it was just because of the kiss; nevertheless, it seemed  
  
Tomoyo's happiness was contagious.  
  
Sakura went back and found her room (though she at first mistook it for the  
  
closet) to change her clothes. She was digging through her bag when she heard a distinct,  
  
muffled cry.  
  
"Mmmph! Mmmmph!" She dug through her bag to find a severely angry Kero  
  
gasping for breathe.  
  
"Kero! What are you doing in my luggage bag?!" she cried, scooping up her little  
  
feathered friend and holding him to her face.  
  
"Your gaki... of a brother... noticed me ....in your purse." He wheezed, furious,  
  
"and stuffed me... in that-that torture chamber... saying I'd get lost!" Sakura's lips  
  
formed an 'o' in understanding as she tried to look only concerned despite the hilarity of  
  
the situation.  
  
"I'm soooo sorry Kero!" She said, cradling the motionless sun guardian. "I didn't  
  
notice you weren't in my bag with me." Sakura immediately knew that wasn't the right  
  
thing to say as the limp figure in her hands sprung to life as if it hadn't spent the half day  
  
plane trip to America stuffed in a bag.  
  
"you FORGOT ABOUT ME???!!!!" the little guadian bellowed unbelievably  
  
loud for such a little creature. "I, the one who helped you survive that reincarnation's  
  
crazy schemes?! Who helped you countless times?! Who-"  
  
"I know! I know! I'm realllllly sorry Kero!" she pleaded. This damage called for  
  
drastic measures. "I'll get you some pizza!" Kero was listening now. She sweetened the  
  
deal. "And pudding!"  
  
She waited for the winged creature's response. " Well...Okay, I forgive you,"  
  
Kero answered as he got round eyed at the thought of food. Sakura smiled. "That is, as  
  
long as it has pepperoni's on top!"  
  
Sakura laughed, answering "Sure Kero."  
  
"Yeah!" He cried, delighted, his past anger completely erased. "But what can I eat  
  
now? I'm starving!" he cried, and without a backward glance, flew out of the room.  
  
With Kero gone, Sakura got ready and changed her clothes, brushing her teeth  
  
and hair. She came back into the kitchen, to find Kero inhaling the same cereal Sakura  
  
had eaten minutes before. Tomoyo rushed into the room.  
  
"Sakura, come on, let's go!" She said, eyes shining. She looked at the guardian  
  
pigging out at the table. "Oh, hey Kero. We're going to the city, now want to come too?"  
  
Kero, as expected, declined. "No,- must – eat," He said between munches. "Okay See you later Kero!" The girls both chimed, before Tomoyo nearly  
  
dragged Sakura out of the house.  
  
She pulled her friend out of the house towards the rental car where Eriol sat,  
  
already turning the engine on. Sakura smiled happily- If she had to go all the way across  
  
the world to deal with some new danger, at least she had Tomoyo and Eriol by her side.  
  
She beamed as she hopped into the backseat, Tomoyo already in the front. "Let's go!" 


	7. Mansion Life and a Mission

Hey- sorry this update took forever to come, but I was on vacation. And I give my reviewers many thanks, yet again. As to a few discrepancies on the people at the Mutant Manor, I really don't want to waste my time trying to remember all the characters. I'll just say that anyone who isn't there is at home over summer vacation with their families. And Spike's just staying over for the summer or something like that. I update again soon.  
  
Enjoy!  
  
--- Syaoran ---  
  
The past few weeks staying in America was fun, if uneventful. Although Li and  
  
Eva had gained little insight as to who had taken out their New York branch, they learned  
  
many details: Whoever murdered their fellow sorcerers, they did it with an  
  
unconventional type of magic, something so unusual, they couldn't identify it at all. Eva  
  
and Li, who had been trained to recognize supposedly every type of magic, were now at a  
  
loss.  
  
Meanwhile at the Institute, things were going well. It took the students a while to  
  
grow accustomed to the sorcerers-Li and Eva being dignitaries made them seem very  
  
unapproachable. Eventually, working with them as a team, they soon forgot all about it.  
  
The next problem was dating. Being exotic and easy on the eyes, they  
  
immediately gained unwanted attention from the opposite sex. While Eva would  
  
completely ignore a boy vying for her heart and maybe give them a good shouting, Li  
  
didn't need to. With his intimidating glare, he managed to fend off any female silly  
  
enough to ask for a date up front. And when they asked for 'favors', like the time Tabitha  
  
asked him for help on her summer math homework, he accepted and actually did the  
  
favors, drilling math equations down pat so well in her brain that she was actually good at  
  
it.  
  
After all of that, there were little barriers for them to fit right in. Li somehow or  
  
another seemed to relate with most of the students in the mansion, and gained the  
  
confidence of many by sharing experiences. Over the years he had grown this vibe that  
  
made people want to trust him- a leadership skill he had unconsciously acquired. Eva  
  
however did not fit in as well as he did, having a more exacting attitude if an equal need  
  
for privacy, but still made fast friends when helping. Whether it was doing the dishes, or  
  
deflecting a hit in the danger room, within a month almost everybody in the school liked  
  
or at least recognized her as a kind friend.  
  
One of their best friends they had in the group was Rogue- Their tendency for  
  
quiet, and their not-so-happy pasts sort of bound them together, especially Li. They held  
  
an unsaid understanding of each other and eerily enough always knew what the other  
  
needed without a thought.  
  
At the same time, Eva made fast, if slightly fickle, friends with Jean. The two of  
  
them were very much alike to each other, sharing the same elegant looks, need for order  
  
and taste, and loved learning with a passion. Even if Eva was slightly brainier than the  
  
red head, they fit together so well it was a little startling. The only problem was that  
  
every once in a while the telekinetic felt a little insecure around the blond beauty- and  
  
they' have day long fights which consisted of not talking to each other until they met up  
  
somewhere, having a tense but quiet fight, and then the next day, make amends.  
  
Along with others, Li had come to like Spike a lot. With his laid back manor and  
  
his undemanding, congenial air, he was a good friend to just hang around with and be  
  
almost normal- that is until they would start talking about missions and so forth.  
  
Eva, despite her vigorous denial, also liked the human icicle Bobby. Though their  
  
relationship was entirely platonic, Bobby would flirt endlessly with the girl in a teasing  
  
sort of way, and every once in a while, pull a prank on her. She would then retaliate in a  
  
wicked, sly, well thought out plan that was ten times as worse. The worst thing you could  
  
do in the Mansion was piss of Eva and Bobby at the same time, for by the end of the  
  
week if you hadn't inadvertently made an extravagantly embarrassing display, you would  
  
have somehow ended up with extra danger room lessons for the whole week. But most of  
  
the time, both things happened.  
  
As for teachers, the two Asians knew most of them very well and liked them a lot.  
  
Like Rogue, Wolverine had the same type of connection to the sorcerers as they did with  
  
Rogue. Dr. McCoy loved the two of them, especially Li, as he was a healer. They could  
  
talk about different treatments for hours, and the doctor thanked him continually for  
  
dealing with some of the patients while he was busy. Li also made fast friends with Storm  
  
because they both spent time in the gardens- she to tend to her flowers, he to tend to his  
  
herbs (for making potions)  
  
At the moment, the students were lazing around on a warm summer's day by the  
  
pool. Most of the students were in the pool, playing a heated game of volleyball in  
  
exception to Amara, who detested cold water, Rogue, who would not dare go in because  
  
of her powers, and Li, off doing business. The two non-swimming girls watched the  
  
game while sunbathing (Rogue had protested greatly to this, but Kitty literally dragged  
  
the girl outside).  
  
"Yes! Score! We are whipping you guys!" Bobby taunted over to Eva's team as  
  
he did a little victory swim in honor of his last point. Eva looked ready for murder.  
  
"Bobby, enjoy your winning while it lasts, because I promise you it won't stay  
  
that way for long." She practically hissed out, fuming.  
  
Jean nodded primly, adding an "Just wait and see." With a little wicked smile,  
  
something she had picked up from Eva.  
  
Evan merely laughed at this. "Jean, you're no precog, and it would take you guys  
  
a miracle to turn this game around!" Even Kitty and Scott, the faithful leader, laughed at  
  
this one. Kurt, who was on Eva and Jeans side, nearly bristled, and Jamie ground his  
  
teeth.  
  
Eva, who caught sight of Li coming back into the mansion, said telepathically to  
  
her red-headed friend, 'We don't need a miracle, we need to get Li on our team.'  
  
'Li?' Jean thought-spoke to her friend, 'I haven't seen him do so much as pick up  
  
a ball. Is he any good at volleyball?'  
  
Eva's answer came readily. 'Li's a complete sports fiend, though he pretends not.  
  
Never gets to play much anything any more.' Then Eva said aloud to Bobby, "If you say  
  
it'd be a miracle for us to beat you, then would you allow us to get an extra player?"  
  
Bobby wondered who she'd bring in, but was confident that no matter what,  
  
they'd beat them. "Sure, why not, it's not going to change anything here," he said,  
  
laughing.  
  
Eva didn't wait a second to act. "Syaoran!" She called as she watched him open  
  
the back door. He looked at her questioningly.  
  
"Eh? What?" He said, a little stressed. His business meeting with the American  
  
clients hadn't gone well (The Li family has many businesses to keep it wealthy). None of  
  
the girls noticed his stress, most of them too caught up in how handsome he looked in a  
  
suit, in exception to Eva who was too busy trying to draft him on their losing team.  
  
"Will you come and play volleyball with us? No powers involved." she asked  
  
sweetly.  
  
Li, surprised and a little wary of her demeanor, answered, "Sorry, I've really-"He  
  
was cut of mid-sentence.  
  
"If you don't play with us now, then I'll make sure by the end of the week you'll  
  
be hand cleaning the jet." Eva said softly in a dangerous tone that didn't allow room for  
  
argument.  
  
He sighed, exasperated, but answered in the affirmative. "...okay, whatever." He  
  
looked at her, slightly peeved, before making his way inside to get changed.  
  
"That girl got you whipped!" Evan called out at Syaoran's retreating back. Some  
  
of the kids laughed nervously, but most didn't at all. They all knew Eva was sly enough  
  
to actually do it, and had seen many an incidence occur with Bobby. Li simply shrugged  
  
in response.  
  
He came down five minutes later in his trunks, another thing for the girl to ooh  
  
and aah over. They didn't mind his scars at all; many thought it made him look hotter. In  
  
twenty minutes the game had ended with, as Eva planned, a startling win over Bobby's  
  
team.  
  
"Man, I never knew Li was so good at volleyball," Bobby said, defeated.  
  
"yeah, man, totally. How'd you get so good?" He asked the now stoic leader.  
  
"dunno," he answered casually. Eva however didn't leave it at that.  
  
"Oh, come off it Li!" she lightly tapped him on the head, one of the few people  
  
who was able to tease him that way- all the other students held too much of a distant  
  
respect for him to do that. "Li's always been crazy trying to be the best in everything he  
  
does, mostly because of his four older sisters who used to be able to trounce him from  
  
sword fighting to spelling."  
  
She was about to elaborate into a story which he was sure he'd be left  
  
embarrassed by when the professor acted just in time to save him.  
  
'Students, we will have a meeting in my study in ten minutes. Come prepared in  
  
your fighting gear- we have a mission.' With that, all the selected students were quickly  
  
getting out of the pool, a few already fighting over dibs on the shower. Jamie looked  
  
around, puzzled.  
  
"Hey, what's going on?" he asked wondering why some of the students were  
  
leaving.  
  
Evan looked at the kid sympathetically. "Sorry, man, the big guy just alerted us  
  
that we have a mission in a little while. Gotta get ready." Jamie simply hung around  
  
glumly in the water, saying, "I never go on missions..."  
  
Ten minutes passed and the assigned team showed up, dressed if not all washed  
  
clean from the chlorine. Li and Eva looked around the room to see Jean, Scott, Rogue,  
  
Kurt, Kitty, and Evan – all original team members except for the two sorcerers who were  
  
chosen because of their danger room abilities.  
  
"Good, you're all here," said the professor lightly; He looked like he had  
  
something else on his mind. "Now here's our mission- Magneto has sent both the  
  
brotherhood and his acolytes to find a group of people in New York City." He paused,  
  
serious. "Truthfully, I have no idea who these people are, or even why he wants them, but  
  
they seem very important to him and I intend to deny him whatever he wants. We have to  
  
find these people first" He then finished, adding on, "Wolverine and storm will be  
  
accompanying you. You will be split up into two teams under Scott and Li. Scott, you  
  
take Evan, Eva, and Kurt. Li, you take the rest. You will both be under order of either  
  
Storm or Wolverine." Xavier knew how angry Scott would get about the situation- he  
  
knew he was a bit jealous of the Li clan leader- but now was not the time to deal with  
  
such matters. 'Let's hope he forgets that now, and forgives me later,' he thought to  
  
himself.  
  
"Well, get a move on it!" wolverine got the students up and moving in a flash,  
  
heading towards the blackbird. "Stay with yer groups- shades, you take orders from  
  
Storm here- and karate kid," Logan's nickname for Syaoran, "you listen to me."  
  
Ororo started warming up the jet's engines. "Everybody buckle up now!" He  
  
watched with slight amusement at Kitty nearly jumping at his orders, quickly stuffing a  
  
fresh first aid pack into the cabin. He made a mental note to get her to do it properly  
  
when they landed.  
  
The Jet was ready for flight. Now wolverine, too, sat down and buckled himself  
  
up, getting ready to feel the increase in g-force on his body when they'd shoot into the  
  
sky at a nice and fast mach 2. "Get ready for take off," Storm called over her shoulder-  
  
and all the old students tensed up, waiting for take off like wolverine was. "Now here we  
  
go."  
  
The plane shot into the sky, slamming the unprepared sorcerers down to their  
  
seats. Despite Eva's usual calm, collected attitude, she let fly a curse.  
  
"Shit!" She cried, quickly following suit to everyone else's posture along with Li,  
  
who looked fairly startled too, though he covered it up better. "How –fast- are- we-  
  
moving?" It was slightly difficult to speak because of the speed.  
  
"Fast," was their only response from Scott, along with a comment from Kitty:  
  
"We don't usually go his fast, but when we're in rush, well you know," She spoke  
  
better than Eva had managed, but it had come out slower then usual, especially from the  
  
fast-talking gossip.  
  
"We'll be there in a minute," stated Ororo with perfect ease. She was used to such  
  
high speeds. Li looked at his watch – it had been five minutes since take off, and they had  
  
already arrived; a testimony of their speed because the normal car ride would take close  
  
to an hour. As they were slowing down, preparing to land, Logan went over tactics.  
  
"Because we don't know who our specified targets are for this mission, our  
  
objective is to find and takeout one of Magneto's goons. From there, Rogue'll find out  
  
exactly who we're lookin' for." Everybody nodded blankly and looked at Rogue with  
  
respect- most of the students had never really known how useful her powers could be.  
  
"From there, it's back to the usual course of action- beat the Brotherhood an Acoltyes,  
  
and find these people."  
  
Storm was having a hard time finding a place to land, giving Wolverine a little  
  
more time to talk. "Now what are our advantages and disadvantages fighting in a city?"  
  
Li's response came quickly and intelligently. "When we fight, we must be  
  
mindful of bystanders and nearby structures. The enemy will use these to their advantage,  
  
as they have no problem hurting or terrorizing people."  
  
"good answer, karate kid," Logan said, angering the other team leader a lot.  
  
"Those are the disadvantages, so what're the advantages?"  
  
Scott was quick to answer this question first, slightly cutting off the Chinese  
  
sorcerer. "we will have ample hiding spaces for attack"  
  
Li spoke up, "but that isn't necessarily an advantage to us. Magneto's men can do  
  
that just as easily as we can." Scott didn't want to admit it, but he had a point. He got a  
  
little angrier, and blamed his bad thinking on being so eager to answer the question. He  
  
grimaced.  
  
"Our only real advantages are Cerebro and the Jet- that way we can determine  
  
exactly where to find the where the mutants are by any display of their powers, big or  
  
small. And if they escape with our targets, we have the speed to catch up to them."  
  
Wolverine nodded.  
  
"good answer again, Li," He said as Ororo was landing the plan. "Now I hope you  
  
all were listening, so you understand the fighting conditions." He said to the rest of the  
  
team.  
  
"I want this run to be quick. Now, the most recent place we found our little  
  
friends was on fiftieth, off Lexington Ave." He looked to Cyclops. "Shades, I want your  
  
team to go and give them a warm welcome over there."  
  
Logan faced Li. "And you, kid, stay with me until we're updated, and I want you  
  
and your team to do surveillance until I send you guys out." They had now landed. "Now  
  
everyone! Move!"  
  
Scott's team was already brought halfway down the block when Kurt bamphed  
  
them out; Li's team was making a wide circle on top of the building around the jet,  
  
looking for any signs of a fight, and Logan got a whiff of the air, trying to see if he  
  
recognized a scent- nothing yet.  
  
"Let's just hope this goes well," Logan growled, half to himself, half to Storm.  
  
They were both worried because they hadn't remembered the last time they had seen the  
  
professor so worried.  
  
"Yes, let's hope." Storm answered, quietly. 


	8. shady characters and a search team

/N: Okay. This chapter is a revision, nothing new or special. I just got rid of stupid stuff and put it in a different format. It might look shorter, but I swear this is 10 PAGES on word! I'll have a new chapter out shortly, too! WOOT!

And about not posting for oh, say 2 years… hehehe, I'm sorry? (ducks). I'm getting back to work on this story, though I'm going to admit right now I'll be pressed for time. I've got a full schedule for this summer with work and classes, so I mostly only get time off to write on the weekends. And truthfully, the fall looks even worse (I'm planning on taking mucho hard classes, and doing an internship…). So, we'll see how this thing pans out. But I do have one promise: I'm not going to abandon this! I'm aiming for a new post at least once a month, so hope you keep with me!

With that final note, on to the story!

"blah blah blah" Talking

'blah blah blah' Thinking

"_blah blah blah_" French/emphasized words. I think yo can figure out which is which.

"Wow!" Sakura said gleefully. "New York City's so busy and big- there's so much to see!"

Tomoyo, who was hanging on Sakura's shoulder, smiled and nodded vigorously in agreement. "Yeah, you're right. Sakura, first we have to go clothes shopping!" She squealed excitedly.

Sakura looked at Tomoyo, surprised. "Hey, but I thought you liked making me my clothes?" She asked, wondering.

"Of course I do, silly!" She said light-heartedly, tapping the green- eyed girl on the head. "But looking at clothes in stores gives me good ideas, and besides, I can't make your whole wardrobe for you!"

"and besides," said Eriol, listening in on their conversation, "then I get to see you two young ladies dressed up and looking simply ravishing," Tomoyo blushed lightly, and Sakura giggled.

"Yeah, don't worry Eriol, I'll make sure to pick something out for her that'll make her look stunning!" She nudged her now even redder-cheeked friend, laughing. She now understood why Tomoyo had followed her around with a camera for most of her teen years- she was just too kawaii with Eriol, and if her and if she and Syao-…. Well, she undertood why Tomoyo was like that, now.

The three of them were thinking about entering a nice looking clothing store, when Sakura felt a tingling in the back of her mind. She looked around and saw, crumpled in a corner, an auburn haired man wearing a set of broken glasses. He was well dressed, in the exception that all his clothes looked worse for the wear. Sakura quickly walked over to the man. Eriol and Tomoyo noticed her wandering off, and followed her.

She walked up to the man and looked at him worriedly. "Sir? Are you all right?" He was passed out. She gave him a little shake, trying o wake him up.

"Mr., are you okay?" She saw the man stir blearily, put a hand to his head in pain.

She squatted down so she could see his face better. He was a handsome man in his early twenties, from her guess, with dark brown eyes. "Excuse me, but are you alright? You look pretty beat up."

The man looked down at himself, and then took his surroundings. He then held his head in his hands. "Merde..." he said quietly to himself; she now noticed he was bleeding somewhere from underneath his trench coat. "uh, I be fine..."

Tomoyo, being her compassionate self, looked on at the man with sympathy. "Sir, what happened to you? Are you really sure you're fine?" She then wiped up some of the blood on his hand with a Kleenex. "I see you're bleeding; do you want us to take you to the hospital?"

"No, no I be jus' fine," he said precariously getting onto his feet. He failed, and nearly fell down, but was steadied by Eriol. Eriol looked at the man with worry written all over his face.

"Sir, I think we aught to know what happened to you so we can help," Eriol could not help it but for some reason he didn't trust this man any farther than he could throw him...without magic, that is. This whole scenario just felt too much like a setup.

"t'anks for worrying about me, homme, ladies, but it s'alright. If one o' you could spare this body a quarter or two for a call, I'll be out of you're hair."

"Oh, really," Sakura cried," I don't think your in any state to make it anywhere, even a phone booth." She looked at him pleadingly. "Please let us help you." The man seemed to ponder it for a second before answering.

"Can't say no to a beautiful femme," he answered, extending his hand. "De name's Remy," he said, introducing himself, "Remy LeBleau."

"I'm Sakura Kinimoto" she anwered brightly, then looking at her friends. "This is my best friend Tomoyo," she pointed to her raven haired friend, "And her boyfriend and my good friend Eriol." Eriol nodded, his eyes distant despite the warm smile on his face. Something definitely didn't feel right about this situation.

Meanwhile, Tomoyo and Sakura were helping him get out of the alleyway, and were bringing him to a nearby bench. 'Stop being so paranoid', Eriol scolded himself.

This man clearly was in need of assistance- he had done nothing but turn down all of their requests to help him. He was acting perfectly normal for someone who had clearly been through a rough ordeal. There was nothing suspicious about this at all...Was there?

He sighed, and went to help the girls.

Meanwhile at the mansion, Xavier was scanning with Cerebro for any signs of mutant activity. He was busy looking into a woman who was having a vision thanks to her precognitive powers, when he felt a sudden ripple of powers somewhere else. He stoppedinspecting the precog mutant and tried to find or identify anything about this other

mutant- but the power usage had been so slight and done so fast that he had no time to inspect it. He sighed, wondering, but his thoughts were interrupted by another mutant; this one with the ability to hover a few feet in the air. He soon forgot about the rogue

mutant- it was probably just another person who failed at concealing their powers, he thought, though still uneasy about his conclusions. He got back to searching.

"Shades, any sign of our the Acolytes or the Brotherhood?" Wolverine spoke into his com. receiver.

"No, we haven't seen anyone yet." He sighed into the mic, frustrated. "It's likefinding a needle in a haystack." Just then, across the street, he saw a whirlwind of papers-the trademark of a certain speed demon in the brotherhood. "Wait one second, I think we got a lead. Pietro just ran by. Once he stops running, then the professor can give us

coordinates to where he is."

"sounds like a plan," Logan's voice crackled through he mics. "Okay, we're going to get Li's group out and moving once we know the speed boy's position. We'll fly them in. I want you guys to meet us there."

"Got it," Scott responded. "Over and Out".

After a quick check, the three sorcerers found the source of Mr. LeBleau's bleeding: A nasty cut on his upper arm.

After it had been cleaned and bandaged up (thanks to Eriol who ran over to a CVS and bought disinfectant and gauze), the four of them had gone for coffee at Sakura's insistence, and the mysterious Remy told his tale.

He had been jumped the night before as he was walking towards a subway stop to get out of the city. Next thing he knew, he awoke bleeding, cold, wallet- less and face to face with Sakura. He had also gained a bump on the head, but there was nothing much that he could do about it.

The group sympathized with Remy, and asked if they could help him in any way, but yet again all he asked for was a chance to call a friend, and maybe later make a police report. Then on they were just having a friendly conversation with the man, though he flirted shamelessly with Sakura once he found out she didn't have a boyfriend.

By the end of the whole escapade, the day was finished and they were all eager to get back to their homes before dark, especially because of Remy's story. Remy called a friend to pick him up, since he didn't want to burden them with paying for a train ride home or dropping him off, so the three of them insisted to wait until Remy's ride came before they'd leave.

"So, Remy where are you from?" Sakura asked inquisitively. She had heard many different accents throughout the day, but could not place her finger on exactly what his was.

"Remy be from down south, N'awlins," he said in his deep, exotic drawl. "French quarter, anyways. M'Acadian." Sakura had heard about New Orleans before from Eriol-she thought it sounded great.

"Oh, really? Is it nice there?" She was bubbling with questions.

"S'my favorite place in de world," he said, relaxing on the bench. "dere always be music, dancin', an' fun. An we's know how to celebrate Mardi Gras right." He smiled at the mere thought of his hometown and how much he loved it, but his thoughts quickly

darkened knowing that he'd never be able to step foot inside it again without the threat of death. He quickly hid the frown that was threatening to appear on his face.

"how 'bout you, sweetheart?" Remy asked, pretending that he had no clue about her. "Where'd you call home?"

"Tomoyo and I are from Japan- Eriol's from England," she answered thinking about her family. It had only been two days and she missed them. He whistled.

"You three be pretty far from home," he said casually. "Why you come to de Big Apple?" Sakura froze, not knowing how to respond. Remy felt her casual demeanor drop to one of anxiety.

"Oh, nothing much, really," she answered, stalling for time. Remy mentally chuckled, enjoying her agitated state just a little. 'Merde, this girl can't lie for her life' he thought to himself as he looked at her with innocent eyes.

"We're just taking a vacation here in the states," Eriol answeredcalmly, once he noticed Sakura's alarm. He hadn't noticed her predicament until then because he had been distracted- very uncharacteristic of him. But then again, it was not every day his

girlfriend made his heart race wildly by a few simple, demure kisses on his neck that set him on fire- wait, who was he kidding, Tomoyo's presence alone could have that affect

on him. If he didn't watch himself, he'd turn into a lovesick fool. Well, he didn't mind being one so far; he had an inkling of a feeling that he'd like it.

"How about you, Mr. LeBleau?" He asked, changing the direction of the conversation for Sakura. "Why are you here?"

"M'job," he answered swiftly, without showing a trace of deception- a true poker

face. "De's be sending Remy all over de place, an' I jus' want to stop by an' see an ol' friend while I was here." The story wasn't entirely inaccurate- he had gone to meet one of his old friends- A man named Russ with a chip on his shoulder and a ridiculous

assortment of black market ware. He smiled benignly, not liking Eriol too well. The boy was suspicious of him, he could tell, though whether his suspicions rooted from his acting out of the norm or the fact that he hit on his girl, he wasn't sure.

"Oh really, Remy? What do you work as?" Tomoyo asked, looking at him with a calm respect.

"M'ah art appraiser," he answered politely, looking at the dignified girl with ease.

"But I'd prefer to appraise beautiful femmes such as yourselves," He winked at Tomoyo, just to get the annoying snoop pissed off. Tomoyo and Sakura blushed at this, causing the blue haired boy to darken nearly imperceptibly in anger. Remy nearly smiled at this.

"so, who do you prefer, Picasso or Monet?" Eriol asked, trying to find something wrong with this man. It didn't matter that he was harmless- it didn't matter that he wasn't acting suspicious, but hell, he was flirting with his girlfriend!

"Monet- I prefer impressionism to modern art- I like seeing landscapes, natural beauty, to the complexities of Picasso. An' besides, I like oil on canvas better." His suppressed smile became a suppressed grin as he saw Eriol's look of mild disbelief- who'd expect such a back water hick who spoke broken English would actually know his stuff about art?

Just then, a car drove up. "looks like my ride's here," Remy said, as a massive blond haired man stepped out of the driver's seat and walked up to Remy. Despite his gargantuan features and his obvious muscle, the cast of his face deemed him completely harmless.

"Remy, my friend," he said in a heavy Russian accent, "Are you alright?" Despite

his stony features he looked exceptionally worried. Remy couldn't handle it. Coupled with his pent up hilarity at the blue haired boy, he couldn't hide his amusement at his friends naive worry over him. He broke into laughter. The Russian looked perplexed.

"Don' worry, homme, Remy's jus' fine," he said between snickers. "You know this ol' Cajun can take care of himself." The Tall man looked slightly affronted, but

brushed it off sighing. The other three were just as confused at his laughter- he had definitely needed help when they met him.

Remy finally quit laughing, and got to introductions. "Oh, and Pete, I'd like you to meet some o Remy's friends- Sakura, Tomoyo, an'Eriol." They all bowed to the massive man in order, each greeting him with a 'hello'. Then Remy turned and faced his three new friends.

"And I would like to introduce to you my friend Piotr, or Pete forshort." Peter, a little confused at their formal greeting, bowed too.

"It is a pleasure to meet you," he responded.

"Well, I suppose it's best if we left," said Eriol, trying to find an excuse to getaway from that man as soon as possible. Sakura and Tomoyo may have liked him, but hejust got on the sorcerers' nerves enough to make him want to blast him into a fiery oblivion with his staff.

"Aww, an' make you walk all de way to your car in the dark?" Remy said sweetly. "I'm sure Petey here wouldn mind giving you fine filles a lift," he flashed a stunning smile at the two girls, making Eriol's repulsion of the man complete.

"An of course, homme," Remy added as an afterthought, "M'sure he wouldn' mind givin' you one too." No one else noted the jeering note on the Cajuns lips except Eriol- ohhh, if that boy gave him just give him one good reason... Despite this, Eriol managed a smile, even if it was a cold one.

The tall Russian nodded, verifying Remy's offer despite the slight blush he hadgained from the way his partner had phrased it.

"Sure, we'd love a ride," Tomoyo answered in her sweet melodic voice. They headed for the car. The tall man Poitr got in the drivers seat while Remy took shotgun, leaving the other three to pile into the back seat.

Tomoyo and Eriol were getting in the back (Even if Eriol was a little reluctant) when a gust of wind blew. Eriol, who was climbing into the middle seat, looked back to

see hat had made the wind when he noticed Sakura, who had been about to climb in the car a half second ago, was gone.

"SAKURA!" he cried, quickly stumbling out of the back seat, quickly accompanied by a very surprised Tomoyo.

"Sakura! Where are you?" Tomoyo called out, panic lacing her voice.Eriol now was immediately scanning for her aura- and he felt it- moving fast, at super-human speeds two blocks away before he could no longer see her aura.

"...Where did your friend go?" asked the very confused Russian.

"...u-uh...She went-she must've went to the bathroom!" Tomoyo cried out, quickly fibbing, before adding on, "You know, it's that time of the month... "

Eriol then spoke up. "well, thank you for asking us if we needed a ride, but I'm sorry to say that we decline. Thanks, anyways, but we have to go now..." He started speed walking towards an alley, Tomoyo in tow.

"Eriol, what happened?" Tomoyo asked once they were out of earshot, confused."did she go off to fight an evil sorcerer, or was she taken? What happened!" she sounded slightly hysterical.

"Truthfully, I'm not sure..." Eriol responded, walking a little farther before summoning his staff, careful that no one noticed them. "But I have an idea of which

direction Sakura was heading... Hold on to me." Tomoyo put her arms around Eriol before he ported out of sight.

Meanwhile at the car, a pissed off Cajun was swearing like a sailor.

He was cut off when his friend, Poitr, had been stoically listening to his rant for a few moments, asked, confused, "What just happened?"

"We just got screwed by that poppa's boy, Pietro!" Now the Russian looked even more confused.

"What? How-"He was not able to finish his question before the Cajun answered it.

"Know de people were s'posed to find, but have no idea who de hell they were?" Remy asked, still fuming.

"That was them..." Poitr said, comprehension dawning on his face.

"damn straight," the Acadian seethed. "An after two days of brunt work, 'n'cluding me beatin' de shit outta myself," Remy pointed to the bump on his head, "'dat mutant jus' took our pay day away!" Remy went back to cursing while Poitr contemplated this.

"Oh, I had it all planned out..." Gambit ranted. "We drive 'em over to our place

after a little persuasion, give em' some laced drinks to knock em' out, den hand em' over to ol' bucket head wit' a nice payoff."

"And when were you planning on telling me?" The Russian asked, rather talkatively for his demeanor.

"dunno..." he answered, carelessly, "Maybe after dey were knocked out. Need somebody to help me lug em' round." They were both quiet for a moment before Remy muttered a quiet "damn" under his breath, before he yet again sprang into action, jumping into the driver's seat of the car.

"Pete, homme," he called to the already advancing Russian, "Get in an' hand me the keys," Going against his conscience, the metal man did as Remy said. Being with Remy was a gamble in itself- You never knew if one of his escapades was going to strike you rich or leave you in a mess. But Poitr needed the money for his family- just as Remy needed the money, which was probably why Remy was willing to split his earnings with him in the first place. Remy liked doing things on his own. Even though Piotr knew the answer, he asked, "What are we doing?"

"Pete," he answered with his cocky, determined grin, "we're goin' to steal dat pay day back."


	9. The Feces Hits the Fan

Ch. 9- The Feces Hits the Fan

Pietro was having a good day.

It'd started out just perfect; he'd gotten to school on time, taunted the x-geeks, and gotten himself a hot date with not one, but _two_ girls. Twins! After all of that, he wasn't expecting for it to get better, but it did.

After coming back to the Brotherhood's decaying house and finding pop tarts that Freddy _hadn't_ gotten to (food was so scarce it was almost funny), he'd noticed that no one was home. But the real question was, where had everyone gone?

Pietro decided a little, _ahem_, investigation was needed so he helped himself to looking in his teammates rooms. Peitro passed the Blob's without a second thought (the room was as disgusting as the man's eating habits), and went into Avalanche's one. Other than finding out he was disgustingly in love with Kitty, which he knew already, there was nothing to be found. It was the same with most of the other rooms, finding Piotr's room filled with paintings and supplies, and Todd's… Well, Todd's room was another one he overlooked. He then stopped in front of LeBleau's room.

LeBleau had made it more than clear that _no_ _one_ should enter his room without his strict allowance, as Peitro remembered all too well. The last time he'd zipped into his room to grab a deck of his cards to play with, he'd found himself flat on his face, a glowing red ace of spades shoved so close to his cheek that he'd gotten a slight burn. His demon eyes danced with an unearthly fire, as he growled out in a soft voice "_No one_ comes in here homme, _comprenez-vous_?" He ripped the playing cards out of Peitro's hands.

Peitro had understood loud and clear, all right. He didn't need to know french to get that he was being told to stay the hell out. And he'd heeded those warnings so far, knowing that despite being Magneto's kid the cajun would do serious damage. He was just too calm about threatinging bodily harm, that he knew the cajun meant it.

But the mutant wasn't home now, and… Well, he really wanted to know what the man was hiding! Who knows, he could be plotting against the brotherhood for all they knew, and he'd be doing a service for the team!

Cautiously slinking in, he studied the room intently. It was his first chance to get a good look at the Acadian's room, and so he was taking his time. The place looked like a weird mix of a bar and the CIA HQ. Bottles of bourbon, cognac, vodka and other alchols stood in a line on wall, with shot glasses on a table next to it. Sitting next to a half-finished glass of scotch was a laptop, scanner, printer/faxer and several other expensive looking pieces of equiptment which Peitro had no idea what they did. On the wall next to his bed was a gigantic map of the surrounding areas and the city, covered in a thin sheet of glass and markered in specific locations with shorthand written next to it.

The final touch was the odd interspersing of normal, regular stuff. A few books were strewn near the bed, along with some porn; a mardi-gras mask was hanging on the wall and his clothes lay rather haphazardly to the sides of the room. His watch and cologne sat atop important looking files as if it were a natural thing to do.

Peitro tooka coughing swig of whishey as he looked around. While studying the cologne bottle, he caught a better look at the papers underneath it. Eyes skimming the page lightly, he could barely believe what he saw. Somehow, that card toting annoyance had found the bounties Magneto had given them ealier. The information was so nondescript and few that Peitro himself had privately giving up on the search, thinking they were untrackable. But leave it to a theif to track the untrackable.

Continuing his persual of the paper, he noticed something jotted down on the bottom of the page. _45th and Lexington, 4:30_. Making the connections, he realized with a moment of stunning clarity that these were the time and directions to finding these people. And sure, he might be stealing the cajun's work… but oh well. LeBleau had stolen from so many other people, he might as well get a taste of his own medicine.

Pietro looked at the time. 4:42. If he ran fast, looked around in the right places, with luck he'd be able to nab at least one of the bounties for himself. And with that he was gone in a flash, looking for a group of asian students…

CXCXCXCXCXCXCXCXCXCXCXCX

Sakura was downright confused. At one moment, she was going to get a ride from the kind Mr. LeBleau to their car; the next, and she was flying at top speeds through the crowded streets of the city. It took her a moment to figure out that she was being carried by a white blond haired man- _what!_- who had a rather tight grip on her. At a few hundred miles per hour.

"What are you doing! Let me go!" Despite her yelling, Sakura's words were mostly lost to the wind, though the man seemed to get the jist of it. The mutant just made a cocky, irritated snort and ran faster.

Frightened, Sakura wondered what kind of magic the boy was using, perhaps something like the dash card? But his aura was eerily clear of magic, instead looking like a fizzling ball of strange energy.

Either ways, Sakura had to escape. As she'd realized with chilling clarity, every second brought her miles and miles farther from her friends and safety. Grabbing her star key, she rushed through the incantation to unlock her staff.

The boy watched her for a moment with curiosity which then quickly turned into awe and then worry, hardened over with anger. Sakura desperately summoned a card, before recklessly activating the first cards she could get her hands on in a rush of breath.

"Fly Card!" Sakura's heart was beating like a drum as she felt the Fly's wings begin to materialize on her back; she never realized how long it took before, how much a second could count for everything. And that extra second caught up with her, as the boy startled, and feeling the wings beginning to grow, _dropped_ her.

From an outsider's perspective, this could have been thought of as a good thing, but it was far from. Moving upwards of 100 mph and without fully formed wings, the only thing she could do was make a few pathetic sweeps before she hit the ground at a blinding speed. The only thing that saved her from instant death was the Fly, which shattered off her back on impact, leaving her to painfully roll across the ground for about twenty feet.

Pain blossomed all across her body in waves so powerful that she had to stop herself from biting her tounge off. Screaming wasn't even an option. She laid there like a broken doll, limbs akimbo, not daring to make the smallest motions. Tears leaked in a contsant stream down her face, as she registered the damage. She could feel the wet hot drip of blood down her right side, could feel the unnatural angle her left arm had taken underneath her body. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to scream. Most of all, she just wanted the pain to _stop_.

Slowly cracking her eyes open for the barest of moments against the pain, she saw the one thing that doomed her. The white-blonde haired young man held the star staff, which had reverted back into a key, and was looking at it and her with a keen eye. He gave her a smirking glance before burying it deep in his pocket, and moving towards her. Sakura tried to move, but her body protested in white-hot spurts of blinding pain. Sakura realized with growing dread that this was the end, she had been caught and would soon be killed by this strange man, who had gotten her on a whim and taken her down so easily. She had failed her duties to protect the cards, and the people. Her tears turned into muted sobs.

The Blond's hand skimmed across her face when he turned towards something, or someone, behind them. Sakura didn't know who, everything was becoming fuzzy… She just really needed to rest…

Sakura's eyes drooped closed.

XCXCXCXCXCXCXCXC

Peitro sighed, looking at the broken, defeated girl laying half unconcious at his feet. True, dropping her had caused the desired effect of taking all the fight out of her and leaving her a compliant little hostage, but… He really hadn't meant to do it. He'd been slightly worried and interested when he saw her fumbling around with that chain of hers. When he felt something starting to _grow_ on her back though, he lost it. Who knew what could've come out of that girl? He'd found it a mile or so back on the road, and thought it best to keep it.

The file didn't mention she was a mutant, but then again he didn't read it the whole way through. He'd been too busy trying to get there in time to take her off of LeBleau's hands. And hell, the girl was pretty, even while beat up. Even bleeding and bruised, her skin looked delicate and creamy.

He made an impulsive move to stroke the unbroken skin on her cheek, but never got to do it when he heard a noise from behind him. Turning around sharply, he looked up to find several numbers of things happen at once.

"Oooh…shit."

XCXCXCXCXCXCXCX

With the Speed Demon finally stopped and given them a chance for fixed coordinates, Cyclops got his team on the move. "In the Blackbird! Let's go, go!"

With his team rushing back on to the plane, and Li's team due to arrive via Nightcrawler once they got there and got a good visual of the place, this was looking to turn into one hell of a showdown.

Pietro had made it out of the city and was currently situated, according to the coordinates, in a park in the suburbs. His hostage, according to what the Professor could garner through Cerebro, was badly hurt and in need of medical assistance. This battle had already taken on a grim note.

Despite that fact, Cyclops was extremely confident that he could handle anything the Brotherhood could throw at them. He didn't want, and definitely didn't _need_ Li's help. So, if he got delayed in sending Kurt over… Well, that would be just too bad. They needed him more.

The Blackbird finally landed, and Cyclops got his team out and moving. " Okay team, let's move! We've got two objectives: Get the hostage into safe custody, and keep the nearby civilians safe."

With that his team left the jet, running into an open field. Peitro was easily spotted on the other side of the park, his distinctive hair sticking out from a mile away.

"Let's make this fast and take him by surprise," Cyclops spoke quitely into the mic. " Eva, I want to you port yourself and Evan on either side of them, and quickly move in so he can't get away. Kurt, you'll be working with me. I'll take him from behind and if he tries to dash off, take him down with your teleporting abilities,"

The three of the nodded, but looked as if they were confused. "Cyclops," Kurt began, "I vas under zee impression zat I vas going to go back for zee other team…"

Scott pushed aside his anger, giving a rational explanation. "We have no time to wait for them to bamf over here right now, Pietro can leave with the target at any time. And anyways, it's four of us against one. We undoubtedly have the advantage."

His team looked at him askance, but said nothing more as they got moving to take their places. Just as they were doing it, Cyclops heard the screeching of a car and saw Gambit jumping out of the driver's seat, the metal man Piotr right behind him. And Scott knew the battle had moved up a notch. The Brotherhood lackeys were easy to deal with, but the Acolytes were a different case altogether. They could do real damage.

"_Bonjour, Homme_," The Acadian said with a rougish smirk, his left hand holding a pack of glowing cards.

And to make it worse, coming from the far corner was the rest of the two aforementioned teams, looking supremely pissed off. St. John was looking especially insane today, flicking his zippo with malicious glee as he lead the Blob, Toad, and Avalanche into the mix. Scott sweated, realizing that the x-men were now outnumbered nearly 2 to 1. Biting back his pride, he turned to Nightcrawler.

"Get the other team over here, and _fast_!"

XCXCXCXCXCXCXC

Back in the city, Li was starting to get impatient. Cyclops should have contacted their team minutes ago, and he was beginning to worry over whether they were alright.

Just then, Nightcrawler bampfed in. "Zee Brotherhood and Acolytes! Come quick, help!"

Li's team rushed over to go immediately, but Syaoran stopped them. " Wait a second, let's have a plan before we rush in!" He said, stepping in front of Kurt.

"We want to take down the most dangerous mutants first," Li explained, "and from what I understand that would be the Acolytes. Kitty and Rogue, I want the two of you to work together taking down Pyro. Kitty can allow you two to evade the attacks, and Rouge you can drain his powers. From there, start using them to our benefit and try taking down Gambit."

"Jean, I want to you get a hold of Pietro by keeping him in the air, and you Kurt should deal with the Toad. I'll be taking down Colossus and helping wherever I can. We go in two at a time with Kurt. Now let's go!"

Kitty and Rogue went together first, leaving Jean and Li waiting for Kurt to reappear. Jean looked at their leader nevously, hoping he knew what he was doing, as Li's face took on the blank look of deep concentration. Kurt bampfed back for them, and time seemed to slow down before resuming the fast paced world of battle.

Blue smoke billowing around them, the three x-men landed in the middle of a full scale fight.

"Watch out!" Kitty called

Jean ducked, looking wildly about for the danger as Kurt bampfed to another spot on the field. Li, however kept standing, deflecting chunks of broken earth as if he were swatting flies. The Blob, who had been throwing the boulders, practically roared.

"Jean! Go find Pietro and the hostage! I'll take care of this!" Looking around to find the speed demon, she took in the destruction. Kitty and Rouge had taken on Pyro as instructed, but Gambit had come into the fight early and had singled Rogue out for a fight, leaving Kitty on her own. Gambit seemed to be taunting the southern girl, small explosions going off with the light whistle of a thrown card. Kitty on the other hand, looked to be having a much worse time as she kept nearly constantly intangible, the waves of fire passing through her.

Eva looked half amused and half sickened as she fought against Toad, fingering her throwing knives with a dangerous glint in her eyes. Jean had long ago explained that while they fought the enemy, the x-men's prinicipals called for as little violence as possible. It was clear that the Sorceress was having a hard time with that rule.

Scott fought across from her meanwhile against Avalanche as usual, making a veritable mess as the land around them itself writhed like tentacles, going up into showers of dirt and fire whenever Scott shot a stray beam of light.

Jean finally located Pietro, who was dueling it out with his long time rival Spike. "Spike!" She called, "Let me deal with him, just get the girl back to the Blackbird!" The hostage, lying a bit past the two mutants, looked more than worse for the wear; her wounds were serious.

"Well, if it isn't the red-headed bitch," Speed Demon called out caustically, before running over and roughly pushing Spike away from the girl. "No way, she's my bounty!"

A low whistle sounded, and Pietro was able to escape just in time from the glowing card sailing towards his feet. "_Your_ bounty, _homme_? You got a death wish or som'tin?" Peitro said some rather unsavory words and tried to punch him, but was tripped up by the grinning cajun.

Jean looked at the two, confused, before Kurt bampfed over. "Vas happening?" He asked, looking at the two glowering mutants.

"I have no idea," Jean responded, but quickly got back on task. "Kurt, get Li over here as soon as possible! That girl needs medical assistance."

"He's indesposed at zee moment, though," He responded as he ducked from a chunk of rock and pointed over their shoulder. Blob was lying facedown on the ground, looking for all meanings of the word _trashed_, while Li took on the giant metal man Colossus.

"Go get Rogue and fight together against him, we need Syaoran over here now!" Kurt disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke as Spike came back over. "This is seriously weird. What do we do?"

The fight between Pietro and Gambit was heating up, though it was very clear who was going to win. Gambit seemed to be toying with the speedster, delivering attacks that would do minimal damage but create serious amounts of pain, from the howling he was making.

"Leave them to it. All we have to worry about is getting the girl. Hopefully, Li-" Syaoran appeared just then with Kurt, who bampfed away with a little salute.

"What's going on?" Li said as he took in the fight, and then looked at Jean.

"Speed Demon and Gambit seem to be having a fight over the hostage," She reported, "and we need your help with her. She's in worse condition than we thought, so we need to get her medical attention, _fast._" Li looked over to the bloodied girl thirty feet away, and a shiver seemed to race through him.

"Li, man, you alright?" Spike spoke up, noticing the way Syaorans' face took on a look of alarm.

"I'm fine. Spike, Keep watch that nobody attacks me, healing takes a lot of concentration and I won't be able to defend myself. Jean, keep watch of this battle and step in if they break up or one of them falls." He fingered a few potions on his belt, before looking at Spike. "You ready?"

Spike rolled his eyes. "I was born ready," With that, the two ran to the side, making a wide arc around LeBleau and Pietro.

Jean watched them, her lips pursed. Something had happened to Syaoran when he looked at the girl in the distance, she felt it. She wasn't good at reading emotions, but she could feel overwhelming amounts of fear, desperation, and a tiny ray of hope coming from him. She wondered why.

Just then, the Speed Demon finally fell from a swift hit over the head by Gambit's bo staff. Gambit smiled rougishly, looking at Jean. "_Desconsole, madmoiselle_, but I have another femme to look after,"

Jean narrowed her eyes, an indefinable anger striking her. "Who, Rogue?" Jean had seen the way Gambit looked at her and just didn't get it. She didn't understand why the Cajun flirt would even bother to try and woo the goth, since she wasn't very pretty and, oh yeah, _untouchable_. She was sure he had some scheme in mind for her, like last time with Mardi-Gras.

"_Non_, not this time," He said, his smirk widening. She wondered what he was smiling about, and then realized too late. The sneaky theif had distracted her and sent a glowing card right towards her feet, before she could even react. She went sailing, and fell unconcious immediately.

Remy smirked at the felled red head. He could sense a little of her feelings, not much, but what he learned he thought stunningly funny. Jean apparently was jealous of Rogue, who he knew for a fact had once been jealous of Jean in return because of her crush on ol' one eyes. Phew, he was glad Rogue was over that, because he'd have serious issues over falling for a girl who liked Mr. Stick-Up-His-Ass Summers.

He stealthily ambled his way over to the bounty.

XCXCXCXCXCXCXCXC

Scott could not believe it.

He and Avalanche had been going at each other for at least fifteen minutes now, fifteen uninterrupted minutes of fighting which surprisingly looked grim for him.

Scott for once was losing, and realized it with painful clarity. He knew he was a better fighter than the rock boy for sure, he'd spent so much time in the danger room that there were jokes he did 'other things' with the robots (he wanted to kill Bobby for that). It was just he couldn't keep his focus, trying to figure out what was going on in the battle and why everybody was looking to Li, and of all people, _Jean_! For instruction. He was the team leader, he was the one supposed to be answering the questions.

The fact that he was still busy in a fight didn't matter. They should have come to him first! He dodged a boulder and looked over to see two of Magneto's goons, Gambit and Pietro, fighting each other. 'That's weird… Why is Kurt going to Li now? He should have come to me!'

His thoughts were broken when the ground underneath him bucked and threw him, giving him even more cuts and bruises. He rolled just in time to save himself from falling into a deep rift growing in the ground. Avalanche laughed.

"You're almost too pathetic for me to squash, Summers. Who died and made you loser of the x-geeks?" Scott growled and got back to his feet. Team listening to him or not, he had to beat Avalanche. He would _not_ let his reputation be ruined like that.

XCXCXCXCXCXCXC

Syaoran stealthily made his way over to the prone girl, his heart thumping. Ever since he got here, he'd been on edge even though he'd had no time to show it. Maybe it was him going crazy, maybe it was him looking for things that weren't there, but he was almost _sure_ he was feeling… Her aura. But it might just be another sorceresses' that felt similar: while it was comparatively stronger than most in the clan, it was definitely not strong enough for Sakura. Sakura's powers stood out like a diamond next to coal, even when she was hurt.

And then Jean pointed out the prone girl some distance away, and his heart nearly stopped. The girl was far enough away that he couldn't make out her features, but what he could see had him both deeply afraid and desperately hopeful. Whoever she was, the girl had honey-brown hair, just like… Her. But no, Sakura wasn't in America, she was safe in Japan with her old friends.

Syaoran had taken care of most all of the threats to the Sorcerering World so far, since he was used to fighting them and it was his duty to protect the widely stretching Li Clan. Besides, most of them targeted him because he was a known, powerful figure. He'd had several tough battles, and had endured a lot of pain and suffering, but none of them had defeated him so far. He was sure Sakura was busy with training all the time, anyways. Eriol wouldn't let her get too slack.

Running closer towards the bloodied figure, he pushed dual hope and panicky fear away. He needed to be clearheaded if he wanted to be of any help in this battle. But despite this, his nervousness kept mounting. Right before he rolled the girl over, he felt his sixth sense flare. 'It's Her…'

Syaoran found himself oddly detatched, looking at the face of his youthful crush. It seemed so unreal, and so horrifying in it's reality that his rational self took a backseat while raw instinct took over. It was his Sakura, bleeding and broken in the middle of a field, near death.

He stopped breathing for a moment, before flying into action. He roughly tore potion after potion out from his belt, carefully pouring some down her throat and applying others on wounds, not letting himself think too hard about her state because he knew that he'd collapse in despair and fear.

He went into the healer's trance, carefully mending her bones, replenishing her blood, fixing tissue and ligaments, cuts and bruises. Even with his working as fast as humanly possible to heal her of her wounds, he wasn't sure she was going to make it. She had been left unattended for too long, lost too much blood and taken too much damage. Her heatbeats were few and far between, her breath was shaky and shallow. The one girl he'd ever felt any romantic feelings for, was likely to die right here in the dirt in front of him.

As he came back out of the trance, Evan seemed to be trying to say something to him, but he couldn't hear it. All he heard were echoes of words, muffled and garbled, that didn't make any difference right now.

He turned first to the Cajun, who he'd known was slinking closer and closer to Her. To Sakura. He saw red.

'Fire!' He thought, and a jet of flames nearly disintegrated the stumbling Acadian, who seemed to instinctively realize the danger and backflipped out of the way. LeBleau looked at him with assessing eyes, and holding up his hands, backed off. Li just knew that the Cajun could feel his bubbling rage, and knew fighting him now would be forfeiting his life.

The Speed Demon, however, didn't. But Li didn't mind that at all. He was the one that got her in that state, he instinctively knew. Somewhere in a distant corner of his mind he realized his mind reading abilities were going haywire, picking up everything, but an overwhelming part of him didn't care. He wanted vengeance. He wanted to _kill_ Pietro.

The white haired mutant was running his way at top speeds, but time seemed to slow down. Syaoran could see him determinedly running, a sweat drop slowly sinking towards the earth as the boy tried to make his way to Her, and he snapped.

His ying-yang pendant, which he had yet to use in America, was ripped off his throat. He focused and the necklace turned into his sword, which had grown longer and more lethal looking due to his black mood. Pietro blanched, and finally realized his danger. But it was too late by then, because Li had already summoned the wolves.


	10. The Coming of the Wolves

OKAY! I know this is a few days late, but here's another chapter for another month! Have fun. I'd also like to give a big hug to everyone who reviewed my story- without you guys I would have left it unwritten: Rin Hitokiri, helen, Mizuki Hikari, Boheme, iamkagomeiloveinuyasha, and Crying Flower. I also want to give a shout out to last chapter's reviewers, since I didn't have time to write my thanks to them. You guys all rock!

This chapter was long in coming, and hopefully satisfies the long, drawn out meeting between Syao and Saku. It also has a great fighting scene which is always a bonus in my book. So, on with the story.

"blah blah blah" Talking

'blah blah blah' Thinking or telepathy.

"_blah blah blah_" French/emphasized words. I think yo can figure out which is which.

XCXCXCXCXCXC

Ch. 12- The Coming of the Wolves

Most of the fighting was over by now, with Blob out for the count, Toad in crippling pain from whatever Eva had done (Rogue was personally creeped out by her now), and Colossus tanked by her touch. She was making quick work of Pyro with Kitty, who had been harassing the valley girl throughout the whole fight, when she noticed it. The howling.

She couldn't help but stop mid-battle to look around, and noticed that Pyro, along with the others, had stopped to look, too. It suddenly became dark.

Kitty instinctively pressed closer to Rogue, who was admittedly more than happy for it. Whatever it was that was turning day into night, it was powerful. Rogue gave Shadowkat a nudge, and they both fell into defensive stances. Whatever came, they'd be as prepared for it as they could be.

The sky became a dusty dull gray color. Rogue, back to back with her fellow x-man, looked out through the trees, straining her eyes looking for any danger or threat to the two of them.

Rogue's breath hitched. Slowly, as if being painted into existance, _things_ were beginning to appear in the distance. Lantern-like greenish gold orbs appeared all over the area, steadily growing in luminosity and size until her eyes were tearing from the brightness, and she closed her eyes afraid that she'd go blind if she kept them open. She felt Kitty's shaking form against her back, and grabbed the younger girl's hand in her glove encased one,trying to reassure her despite her own growing fear.

The light abruptly dimmed down, and when Rogue opened her eyes again, blinking as her eyes slowly adjusted, she realized that it had become deep _night_, knowing it shouldn't have been later than 6 pm. The moon was out, larger and brighter than she had ever seen before, with thousands of vivid stars scattered across an unfamiliar sky. Rogue looked down, and the park they were in had become a forest, with high spiring trees and the dense, earthy smell of the wild.

It was then that the wolves appeared. Pouring into the clearing from all sides, the wolves stalked forwards, gleaming white teeth glimmering in the dark. Their hides, while all of different colors- mottled browns and blacks, whites and greys- all held a strange sheen of golden green. They were all abnormally large, too. Standing between five to six feet tall and terribly dangerous in appearance, they looked like they'd stepped out from somebody's nightmare. X-men, Acolytes, and Brotherhood alike huddled together in the middle of the field, except Syaoran, who was still bent over the girl.

Eva, who had stood as if in shockand awe for most of these happenings, seemed to come to herself. "Syaoran!" She called out, scrambling to get to the Li Clan leader, but Jean held her back fearing for her life.

"You can't go out there! It's too dangerous!" She cried out to her friend.

"You don't understand, Jean! There's no time. Kurt, help me get to Syaoran!" Kurt gulped, looking out at the wolves surrounding them.

"No Eva, don't think about it. The best chance we have for survival is to stick together; if you leave the team you'll be easy prey!" Cyclops added on, holding her back.

"No, you don't get it Scott! I think these wolves were summoned by Syaoran. The only way to get rid of them is to get Syaoran to banish them!"

"You're sure?"

Eva bit her lip. "Almost positive." It wasn't quite the answer they wanted, but the wolves were closing in and they didn't have much time.

"Nightcrawler, please will you bring me? You don't have to stay," Kurt looked pale even despite his blue fur, but grimly nodded. He wouldn't leave his new roomate in danger.

"Alzright, we go." He took a deep breath as Eva latched on to him, and bampfed out of the circle. Meanwhile, Rogue noted with increased unease, the wolves were getting closer, and growling.

By that time, Syaoran and the hostage were completely surrounded by wolves. Yet, they flowed past him as if they didn't see him- no, more like… they knew him? They brushed closely by as they past him, some stopping to sniff, others gently butting his hand as they flowed by, but Li looked like he was in a trance and hadn't even felt it.

Eva and Kurt appeared next to them.

XCXCXCXCXCXC

It had taken Eva a while to get over her astonishment, and further, her disbelief at what she saw was happening around her. She thought she'd never see it, the Wolf Spirit Summoning, Bei Chai. It was one of the most dangerous and powerful summonings of moon magic, one that was meant to utterly annihilate enemies.

She had heard that Li had done it once when he battled against his most powerful enemy, sorcerer Xin Dian Huo. The man was a fire elemental expert who was good at stirring up riots and other trouble, always leaving massive bloodshed in his wake.

On their last confrontation Dian Huo had brought a small army of sorcerers to the Li Clan Estates to kill Syaoran and become dictator of the Clan, and erstwhile ravaged and killed anyone in their wake. Syaoran, acting to save his clan, came out and faced them alone, using this summoning. Half an hour later, when the spell finally settled, not a single one of Xin or his men were in sight. It was as if they disappeared completely, except for reports of people occasionally hearing echoes of muted screams during nights of the full moon.

Li had never done any summoning magic since. He had come out of that incident scarred, his eyes tormented and heavy. Eva had no idea what triggered this reaction, but she had to stop him before everyone inside died.

For some reason, the wolves completely ignored her and Kurt, to their endless gratitude. It was odd and she wondered about it, but didn't have the time to think on that peculiarity. She went up to Syaoran.

"Li! Li, listen to me! You have to stop this! You can't kill them all!" The stoic leader's face remained blank, as if he couldn't see her at all, still staring at the girl on the ground.

"Syaoran!" She grabbed his face and tilted it towards her, trying to wake him from his trance. From behind her, she could hear the screams of the x-men, and the sound of battle. She looked back to see the group trying to keep the wolves away, but she knew if this didn't end soon their efforts would be futile. She turned back to Li.

"_Xiao Lang_!" She shouted into his face, slapping him. His mind stayed removed, eyes glazed. The screams grew louder and she looked back, fearing what she would see.

The wolves had entered the circle's ranks, seeping deep into it. Eva herself screamed as she got out her throwing knives, ready to fight to the death to save them. However, the wolves didn't seem to be biting any of them. They continued deeper into the terrified crowd, who were slowly calming when as they noticed the wolves' ignorance of them. The wolves passed by them as if they weren't there, just obstacles, making their way into the center…

Peitro ran out of the crowd as if caught aflame. Across his arm a was a bleeding red claw mark. Like a homing signal, all the wolves turned towards the white-haired mutant. Realization struck Eva, and she turned to Kurt.

"Nightcrawler, listen to me: we have to protect Speed Demon! Get the rest of them to help in any way they can, the wolves won't intentionally hurt them… I think. So just keep Pietro safe!" Nightcralwer was gone in a flash, leaving Eva going back to try and end Li's spell.

Eva kept trying to wake him, do anything she possiby could but nothing seemed to work. Pietro's cries of fear became louder and more insistant, and the wolves angrier and more vengeful. They weren't attacking the other mutants yet, but she feared if they kept blocking the wolves, the wolves would be spurred into all-out attack.

"Li! Please, you don't want to do this!" She screamed in his ear. "Please, please, please, Syaoran Li, _wake up_!"

Suddenly, everything came to a halt. The wolves stopped in their tracks, some mid-jump, landing gracefully as they backed away from the group. Li's eyes, which were dull and glassy, seemed to come alive. He looked down, Eva following his glance, to find the hostage alive and awake, ableit weak. She was grabbing Li's ankle.

The summoning dissipated, the wolves turning their backs and disappearing into the foreign landscape as the scene blew away like fog, leaving the stunned group in a battle-scarred park. Confusion and exhaustion reigned as the mutants collapsed, and a few laughed mirthlessly, glad to have survived the encounter.

Eva took a deep breath, noticing her hands shaking, and turned to look at Syaoran again. She watched, confounded, as Li gave the hostage girl a light, heartwarming smile. And with that, Syaoran collapsed unconcious, falling backwards onto the bruised earth.

Eva blinked, feeling a little hurt and extremely confused. She had no idea _what_ was going on, but there were two people on the field that needed to get in the med bay as soon as possible. Quickly, she got the team moving, getting Li and the mysterious girl on the blackbird, ready to fly out.

The Acolytes and Brotherhood, seeing that they had just been thorougly beaten began moving out too. Falling into a chair, she took a shuddering breath. It was over, for now. She looked at the unconcious girl, strapped down in the back of the jet next to Syaoran and wondered. Who was this girl, and what exactly was she to Syaoran?

XCXCXCXCXCXCXCXCXC

Ten minutes after the battle had ended, Eriol and Tomoyo were staring at the ruined field, stunned. They had been desperately trying to track down Sakura during the whole battle, and clearly their efforts were in vain.

Eriol didn't understand it; with such a powerful aura signature as hers, it should have been easy to locate her even if she was weak or asleep. It was as if something was blocking her presence, or masking it. And on top of that, whenever Eriol did manage to catch her trail, she was moving incredibly fast, and turning irregularly.

Tomoyo turned towards him, looking lost and afraid. "Where is she, Eriol? Where's our Sakura?" Questions about her well-being hung off her words in the bated silence.

Eriol did not want to say he didn't know. He could not. Hell, how could the reincarnation of the most powerful sorcerer of all time _not_ be able find her? All he needed was a little time and some clues. This was just another setback to keep in mind, nothing more. With a little time and patience, he'd be ready.

"We'll find her Tomoyo, I promise you," He finally ground out. "But first, we have to find clues about who kidnapped her. Let's split up and search the field for clues."

Tomoyo quickly nodded her assent, wiping a stray tear as she headed for the far left corner of the field, where something akin to a crater was made. Eriol watched her wander off before turning his sights onto the magic that had been used, heading back a distance towards the treeline.

Studying it, he noticed something he'd had a hard time believing, something that he had faintly felt since they got a hold on this location: he was alsmost sure there were traces of his descendant's magic. He'd seen the young man sparingly over the years, since he was always busy with Clan work. Was Li here, perhaps 'kidnapping' the young card mistress?

Turning around to tell Tomoyo his suspicions, he then noticed something else perhaps even more horrifying.

"Tomoyo?" Eriol called, looking around the empty field. No one called back. "Tomoyo! Come out!" Still, the young Japanese girl's face did not appear. He felt for her aura, and felt nothing nearby except the jumbled auras of the nearby town, and one faint, suspiciously familiar aura… Remy Lebleau!

Eriol's magic flared, voilent blue hues invading the landscape as he sent his magic crawling across the field. Eriol had just known he was bad news, and now he had a good reason to utterly destroy him, especially if he hurt Tomoyo in any way. He felt sure that Sakura's disappearance was somehow connected to Tomoyo's, and if he found one of them he'd shortly find the other.

And so, with an arsenal of facts and sheer determination, he was going to take the kidnappers to their knees.

XCXCXCXCXCXC

Sakura woke up as if from a long sleep, taking her time as she slowly slipped into conciousness. Sleepily wiping at her eyes, she awoke to find herself in an unfamiliar, sterile looking room. Her breath caught as her sleep-fogged memory sparked life, reminding her of everything that had transpired before her restful sleep.

While with Eriol, Tomoyo, and kind Mr. LeBleau she had been kidnapped. She remembered her high-speed struggle, her terrible fall, and little else. Something niggled in the back of her mind, telling her that she'd forgotten something important but she couldn't seem to remember. And despite just having awoken, she found herself inevitably tired again. Already her eyes were drooping as she cast about her memory for that intriuging fact that eluded her. However, sleep won as she fell back into a healing slumber.

XCXCXCXCXCXC

Sakura opened her eyes to find herself in the same sterile room she had awoken to earlier, except now she heard sounds of battle outside.

The dull thud of staccatoed explosions sounded, muffled by distance and debris. The sounds of fighting- grunts and yells and flesh hitting flesh could be heard underneath the blasts.

Unnerved by all the fighting going on, Sakura slipped out of the bed and cautiously exited the room, wondering what was happening. She felt like she had fallen asleep for a century or so only to have been woken by a bloody war. She cautiously walked down the charred hallway, trying to get out without running into the fight.

Suddenly, she saw a hazy figure standing at the end of the hallway, hard to make out from the light. Her rational mind told her to run, but her limbs didn't seem to want to listen as she stood in place and watched the figure.

"Come, Sakura." The figure turned and started walking away. Sakura, confused and wary, tentatively followed after the mysterious figure. Coming out into an austere entrance room, she caught up to the figure – a man she now realized- who was facing away from her, looking out a door.

The sound of explosions crescendoed as she walked closer, and caught sight of the outdoors. Sakura's heart caught in her throat as she watched the carnage of a terrible battle ensuing. Sorcerers and people with strange auras battled together against eachother, causing utter destruction. And most horrible of all, in the midst of this battle was a black sorcerer, creating utter chaos.

There were many different types of sorcerers; moon sorcerers, sun, star, even planet sorcerers. But all of them cast alliegence to beneficial or detrimental magic. You could have a light sorcerer like Sakura, one who mostly did good, or a grey sorcerer like Eriol, who chose to do both good and bad as things suited him. There were also dark wizards, the type she had to fight most often, and the incredibly rare white sorcerer, one who did no harm and could only cast incredibly powerful healing and evasion magic.

And then there was the black sorcerer. The black sorcerer was a light sorcerer's worst enemy, a person with no qualms about killing or torture or even more terrible things. Born from a ritual where the sorcerer willingly gave up his soul and concsience in exchange for lethal, incredibly dangerous powers to exact revenge, the black sorcerer was a mindless killing machine. The sorcerer also had to have killed at least one other sorcerer before the ritual, to prove themselves worthy of the ritual. If they hadn't killed and attempted the ritual, the ritual would give them a bloody death.

Sakura watched in horror as the black sorcerer terrorized the battleground. Whoever the sorcerer had once been (for now they were no longer a sorcerer, so much as a vessel of hate), the person had clearly already been very powerful even before the transformation. Now, the black sorcerer was unstoppable.

Grabbing the star key from her neck, she prepared to battle the heartless creature that had already probably killed so many. Her hands shook at the thought, because she knew the black sorcerer was clearly much stronger than her, but she just couldn't watch it anymore- the killing, the destruction, the hate.

Just as she released her wand, the figure spoke up again. "Don't try to fight him, Sakura. It will do you no good."

Sakura stopped mid-step, looking at the man. "What?" She asked, squinting against the light. She still couldn't quite make out his facial features, though she could clearly see him as an older man, perhaps in his fifties.

"The black sorcerer is even more dangerous than you think, and more important to you than you realize. Remember this moment. And when the time comes, you will know what to do."

Sakura tilted her head, confused. "Know what to do?"

"Yes." The man shut the door. The sounds of fighting stopped. "You must protect your people at all costs Sakura, even at the cost of your magic."

"My…my magic?" Sakura sidled away from the man, feeling uneasy.

"Put the needs of the people before your own, Sakura. You will know what is right, then."

Everything flashed white.

XCXCXCXCXCXC

Sakura abruptly woke up to the same sterile room, shaking. The dream – was it a dream? She couldn't tell – had shaken her, and she tried to puzzle out what exactly had been going on. Was the dream a prophecy? If so, when was this prophecy going to come true? She half expected to hear explosions, thinking that it was going to happen any moment now. Instead, she heard the door open, and rolled over to look.

A giant blue beast in a lab coat suddenly came through the door, toting a clipboard and pen. Sakura's eyes grew wide and, backing up in the bed she held back a cry of fear. Were her captors planning on experimenting on her?

Turning again towards Sakura, the creature caught sight of her awake and said in perfectly polished english, " Oh! Well then, my dear, welcome back to the realm of the living."

Sakura just sat there, gaping, as the blue creature continued to talk. " You've lived through quite the tumble. How are you feeling now, Sakura?" At Sakura's slack-jawed look, the creature took a different tack.

"Excuse me for my discourtesy, you must be very confused. I am Dr. Hank McCoy of the x-men. Nice to meet you."

Sakura, despite still being wary and confused, shook his hand. "Kini- I mean, Sakura Kinimoto, pleased to meet you, too."

"Well then, Sakura," the furry blue man asked, "I'm sure you have a lot of questions. Feel free to ask me any of them to help clarify anything for you."

Feeling a little safer around the man, she asked, "Well, um… Where am I?"

The beast smiled. "Good question. Right now you are in Westchester, New York, with the X-Men."

"X-Men?" Sakura echoed.

"A group of mutant

a group of mutants dedicated to peace between ourselves and the general populace. You are currently healing from a rather nasty fall you took due to the Brotherhood's interference, another mutant group with more hostile opinions on human-mutant relations. You are currently residing in our medical bay for treatment."

Sakura's head was spinning. "Hoe… Mutants? What are they? Are you a mutant?" She asked, staring at his sparking aura. So maybe that's why she'd seen auras like that.

Dr. McCoy chuckled. "Yes, my dear, I'm a mutant. My genetic makeup has changed in such a way that I have inherited unique gifts."

Sakura seemed to digest this for a moment, before adding… "Excuse me… But, how did you know my name?"

The doctor seemed a little surprised. "You don't remember that? Dear, you might have a touch of head trauma." At Sakura's blank stare, he continued, "One of our new teammates seems to have been a good friend of yours during childhood. Do you have any recollection of seeing… Syaoran Li? He often visited you bedside these past few days."

Sakura's breath caught in her throat as in a flash of memory she recalled the fight, waking up to a starry sky to see his familiar face hovering over her. She had thought it all a dream.

"…Yes. I remember." She sat in a daze. Dr. McCoy seemed to realize her roiling emotions and went to find some gauze.

"Excuse me, Mr. McCoy, but where can I find him?"

XCXCXCXCXCXCXCXC

After being thoroughly checked by the doctor and given instruction to come by for a quick check up every day this week, Sakura was finally released from the med bay. A perky brunet waited for her at the door, eager to show her around the manor.

"So, like hi! My name's Kitty Pride," She said, looking at Sakura intently with eager eyes. "It's so nice to finally meet you! You were resting for such a long time, and it really got Li worried, even if he didn't say anything," She prattled on. "Li's not much of a talker, or emotional, or whatever, so it was a surprise to see him like that! I mean-" Sakura, who had been trying to get a word in edgewise for the last few moments, finally caught the mutant's attention with a tug on her shirt.

"What's up, Sakura…Ki-mi-yo…to? Is that how you pronounce it, I didn't quite catch it the first time,"

"No, it's Kin-I-moto," Sakura elaborated, "And I was wondering where-"

"AHHH!" The girl in pink screeched as frozen garments of clothing started falling to the ground, having been iced to the ceiling a while ago.

"BOBBY DRAKE, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"

For a cute, ableit energetic young girl, Kitty looked downright dangerous as she cornered a blond haired boy who Sakura guessed must have been the 'Bobby' she was referring to.

"You are soooo dead meat, Drake!" She cried, chasing after him with a rolled up newspaper.

"Hoe… Kitty-san?" The girl seemed a bit caught up in her attck, so Sakura left her to chase the blond boy. She could feel her old friends aura pulsing, and heart fluttering, followed it.

Closing her eyes and trusting her magic to guide her, she walked through the complicated hallway system, coming ever closer to what she visualized as a mass of shimmering green-gold. He was actively using his magic in droves she could tell, the familiar tickle of him summoning the elements brushing against her neck. She walked through a door, and opened her eyes.

Taking in her surroundings, she found herself stationed in front of a giant glass pane looking down into what looked like a battle ground. One other person was also in the room, looking at her quizzically as she draw a heart on glass with her fingers.

"Alright there?" A burly looking man asked her over what looked like the controls. She nodded and would have explained her strange entrance, except _he_ came into view. Syaoran Li was down there, in the flesh.

Her breath caught as she watched him fight. His movements were gracefully lethal, going from one attack to another with such fluidity and precision that it almost looked as if her were dancing. Except it was too fast for dancing, his motions so swift that she'd only just catch the twist of the wrist that blocked a bullet, or his leaning slightly forward and just out of the way of a razor disc.

"Yeah, he's good." It was the burly man again, who she noticed was watching her watching him. She looked up.

"Yes, he is. He was always good at fighting. It's just, seeing him fight now… It makes me realize how much things have changed." Syaoran was always a good fighter, but his lethal precision must have come from more than clan practice. He was incredible.

"Oh, excuse me. My name's Sakura Kinimoto, nice to meet you,"

"Wolverine. So you knew the karate kid when he was younger?" Sakura smiled faintly.

"I like to believe so," she bit her lip.

Just as they finished speaking, a sophisticated-looking blond girl came into the room. Taking a measuring glance at Sakura, she walked up to the window, catching sight of the young sorcerer neatly slicing a robot in half. "So you finally woke up. Syaoran will be glad to hear it,"

"He already knows," Sakura replied distantly. She knew he could feel her presence thrumming from up above, hesitant and curious. How much had he changed? How much had she? Had he forgotten about her? Moved on? She never had. It almost felt like she was watching a stranger.

The blond watched her with a calculating eye. "Kinimoto, right?" Sakura nodded. " I'm Eva Hiachi, Syaoran's partner from Li Clan."

To hear that Syaoran had a new partner stung, but what had she expected? And the way she called him Syaoran…He rarely let anyone call him by his given name, even for Sakura at one time. So Syaoran had moved on."Nice to meet you, Eva. How has the clan been doing?"

"It's been a little chaotic, but over all well. Ever since Syaoran took up leadership the clan's been a bit more stable, though there've been some tough moments,"

"Li's taken up leadership?" She felt like she'd fallen into another world.

Eva looked at her skeptically. "A while ago, yeah. You two are friends, right?"

"Last time I checked," They were silent. Sakura had faithfully written to Syaoran every week for nearly a year despite his rather sparse responses, when he stopped writing back altogether. The last time Sakura'd sent him a letter, she'd gotten all of her month's previous letters sent back to her unopened. He didn't even explain why he stopped writing. She turned away.

The battled scene below ended with an abrupt explosion. The three of them looked down to see Li in a circle of quickly dimming light.

Wolverine, who had been least surprised by this, talked into the mic. "What'd you just do there, kid?"

"Just a little moon magic. Sakura, would you mind meeting me downstairs in ten?"

Sakura nodded, knowing she was not visible through the reflecting glass but would still be understood. They could still read the feeling of her old partner's auras, at least.

"See you then," Was his reply as he turned around and headed for the showers.

XCXCXCXCXCXCX

Sakura waited outside in the corridor, antsy. She wondered how she and him would react around eachother. Would it be uncomfortable and dull? Or would they fake familiarity and pretend to forget all the their issues of silence over the years. She wan't sure.

But when Syaoran finally did come out, all of those thoughts raced out of her head like water through a sieve. She stood as if petrified, and watched her former ally, hair still wet from the shower, walk up to her.

Stuck trying to form some kind of coherent sentence, she was totally surprised when Syaoran came up to her and embraced her in a tight hug. "I'm so glad to see you're alright, Sakura. You have no idea how much you worried me there,"

Any of Sakura's remaining fears of akwardness melted away as she hugged her old friend back, nuzzling her head into his still-wet shoulder. "I can't believe it's really you. It's been so long," She laughed into his shoulder. "How have you been doing, what's going on with the Clan?"

The next few hours flew by without the two of them noticing as they caught up with eachother on their lives. Sakura was stunned over how much the young leader had changed, despite being the same Syaoran she remembered. Even while he was a middle schooler he acted rather mature (sometimes at least), but now he acted twice his age. He was well spoken, confident, and capable.

But he also seemed a bit jaded and world weary. Sakura privately wondered if he really wanted the position of Clan leader so early, because it clearly taxed him. The amount of work he had to do was exceedingly hard even for him, Mr. Efficient.

Despite Sakura's newfound connection with her old friend, she still wanted to ask a few of the less than savory questions lurking in her mind: namely, the reason why he'd decided to stop writing her altogether.

Before Sakura could muster up the courage to ask about why they had stopped communicating however, their conversation was interrupted.

'X-Men, meet in the hangar in ten minutes prepared for battle. Activity has been detected at the Brotherhood.'

(Evan, Eva, Kurt, Scott) (Li, Rouge, Kitty, Jean).

(Blob, Avalanche, Toad, Pietro, St. John, Remy, piotr.


End file.
